


Moments Grown

by Montreat11



Series: Moments Series [15]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Drama, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-08 03:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15922229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Montreat11/pseuds/Montreat11
Summary: Love blooms, family blossoms, and a relationship is grown. 15th in the Moments Series. Belle's perspective of everything that happens in Storybrooke from the moment they find Gideon in the cave, through the weeks they learn to be a family, and ending with the family dinner. R/R.





	1. A Newborn Family

For once the world was perfect. For once things seemed to go their way.

Gideon was perfect and beautiful. Not a hair on his head was harmed. His eyes were closed in gentle sleep and she couldn't help but think that after the life he'd lived he deserved to have that peace at the moment. With any luck whatever memories he'd had would fade into dreams and those would be nothing but shapes and colors, a reality he no longer needed to live.

They were crying. Their son was a newborn, and yet it was she and her husband who were locked in a embrace around him blubbering far more like children than the adults they were. Their bodies swayed, mutually rocking their child back and forth until he let out a small noise and adjusted himself in her arms. They both chuckled at the motion, at the innocence and harmlessness of it. And when they glanced up at each other, two identical smiles on their faces, what came next was easy enough to desire. In an effort to get closer and touch her lips to his own she adjusted her weight and-

She got a very sudden and painful reminder of exactly why she was relying on him to hold her up. Still, she didn't shriek or cry out through the pain pulsing through her leg and up her calf. She let out a small gasp of surprise, and he adjusted. The grip he had on either side of her became tighter as she held her baby, unable to wipe the smile from her face even through her pain.

"Are you alright?" he whispered in the dark.

She nodded. "It's impossible for anything to be wrong."

She watched him nod in agreement as they corrected their stance to accommodate her injury. After what they'd lived through the past couple of weeks, there was very little that would upset her at the moment. Even a sprained ankle.

"We need to get that corrected," he muttered finally. She held tight to her baby, knowing what he was going to do without the words and was unsurprised to find themselves standing very suddenly in their pink house, couch right behind her legs and the coffee table behind his own.

"Careful now." He helped her fall back into the chair easily enough that their son didn't wake. She couldn't take her eyes off of him and only felt the way he gently moved her foot into his lap, as he'd done before, removed the shoe she wore and placed his hand over injury. The minutes ticked by as he concentrated on her and her alone, undisturbed by the little swaying she was doing with their son, unmoved when she slipped the shoe to her good foot off, and unswayed by the casual glances and smiles that she cast him as he worked.

He was wonderful. She knew that there was something he had yet to do, that every nerve in his body was probably aching to do and yet he didn't look up at her until the job was done, until pain receded to discomfort, and then slowly but steadily dulled and was forgotten.

"There now," he muttered, setting her leg gently back on the floor. "We should let that heal naturally the next time. Magic will only continue to make it worse."

She agreed. But instead of voicing her opinion sat forward with their son in their arms. After everything he'd done, he still hadn't had his chance…

"Rumple…this is your son."

Her mobility restored it was easy to lean forward and set the baby in his arms. She could tell that he hadn't expected it, not so quickly, but his arms automatically formed a haven for their son and she watched as his breath caught the minute she'd done it. Gideon looked smaller there, cradled against his father's chest. She was so small that Gideon was the full length of her chest, but with Rumple his head fit perfectly against his palm, the bulk of his body along the length of his forearm. She felt like she was made to hold Gideon, but she saw what that must have looked like when she watched Rumple hold him. They were both made for him. Or maybe he'd been made for them? She wasn't sure which it was anymore. And in her happiness true curiosity eluded her, and she was happy to surrender to the mystery and watch her husband hold his child for the first time.

He'd told her once that the happiest moment of his life was when he'd first held Baelfire in his arms. But as she watched the two of them and he began to cry and tremble over the weight of the infant and his blankets she wondered if it was possible to have more than one happiest moment in life.

"Oh, thank you, Belle," he breathed out on a sigh. "Thank you."

She felt her own tears swell, building out of happiness and guilt and even pride. "Don't thank me," she muttered rising so that she could sit beside him on the coffee table and look over his shoulder at their son. "We did it together. We both made him. I think he's got Neal's cheeks. And your nose."

"Your chin," he added moving a hand down over the curve of his face. Gideon was so deeply asleep he didn't even twitch.

"We already know he'll have your eyes…we know who he'll be physically, but who he'll grow up to be now is up to us. Without your mother he could have your bravery."

"Your optimism," he snorted.

"Your charm."

Beside her Rumple nodded. "Do you think I might get it right this time? That he might grow up to love us and make a young lady happy one day? Give us a grandchild?"

She felt another wave of tears wash over her and nodded. "I think that's a very likely scenario, especially if we take things slowly, one day at a time," she choked out, laying her head on his shoulder. This was too much. It was a lot to take in! It was hard to believe that they'd woken up cursed, that they'd been terrified they'd never see Gideon again only hours ago, that they had been in that cave barely thirty minutes ago searching for his heart. And now he was here. The Black Fairy was gone and every drop of desperation and sadness she'd felt over the last few weeks seemed to vanish. For their world to go from almost over to starting anew in less than an hour was overwhelming. To hear her husband talking as he was now…she didn't think he'd ever behaved this way.

"Belle?"

"He's so tired…" she observed after a sniffle, wiping her eyes so he couldn't see just how much she was crying. "I should have saved that basket for him to sleep in. We have nothing here for him!"

"We'll need to go out first thing in the morning, but for tonight he'll be safe enough with us."

Yes, a curse had broken today. If what she'd seen afterward was any indication then there was no doubt in her mind that Storybrooke was a mess, just as it was after every curse. Stores would be shut down, people searching for loved ones, everyone trying to figure out what exactly had happened to them. There was no use in wading into all of that, and she had no desire to. They were here for the night. And while she imagined they would both be perfectly happy to take shifts in holding their baby, she didn't want their arms to get to tired and drop him, or Gideon to not be able to move about because he was curled so tight against them. A basket would have been perfect. Come to think of it…

"I have an idea."

Tearing herself away from her men was harder than she suspected but she managed to walk up the stairs, not bothering to turn the lights on, but rather living in the perpetual darkness they had been in downstairs. From Rumple's closet, she pulled free a laundry basket, then went to the linen closet and fetched a fresh pillowcase which she promptly stuffed with folded towels and set in the bottom of the basket. It wasn't much. But it would do for the night.

Before she went back down the stairs she found herself stopped by an object in the hall, one that she recognized. A bell jar. Her bell jar. She'd been keeping it by her nightstand but with the new curse shifting everything around it was now just sitting innocently enough on a table in the hallway, an unsuspecting decoration. She smiled as she added it to her basket and went back downstairs to find Rumple just as she'd left him, sitting on the coffee table holding their son in his arms and rocking him back and forth.

"He's so small, this should do for the night," she explained setting the basket down on the couch. She pulled her bell jar out and without conversation or question he rose and placed their son onto his makeshift mattress. He squirmed about for a moment at his freedom, then fell back into his deep slumber.

"Perfect," Rumple mumbled as he drifted off once more.

"I thought we could use this as a nightlight," she whispered setting the bell jar on the table beside Gideon.

"What is it?" he questioned.

"You don't know?"

He shook his head. "I've seen it in our room for weeks, and I can sense it's fairy magic but what it is I couldn't say. It's not an object I'm familiar with."

"It's you," she smiled taking her seat in the armchair across from him. "When we went to Camelot all I knew was that you were dying. I didn't want to go with them because I didn't want you to die alone, so Mother Superior gave it to me. Your life extended to the last petal. Of course, I didn't anticipate we'd be gone six weeks, but it worked. Whenever I wanted to check on you I only had to think of you-" at that, she closed her eyes and let the magic of the jar fall away so that it revealed the rose within "-and I'd know how you were…are. See there. Strong and healthy. It lets off a nice glow. Only for me, but I figure maybe Blue could alter it so that it works for him. Maybe it could show both of us someday."

Rumple gazed down at it, looking astonished in the red-gold glow that her rose emit in the dark room.

"It's beautiful," he finally whispered. For the first time that night their focus was on something other than their child. Their baby sound asleep in the basket on the couch they made eye contact and the sea of emotions raging inside of her picked out a new sensation, complete with questions that she had to have answered.

"What happened, Rumple?" she asked leaning forward in her chair. "How did this happen?"

Rumpelstiltskin sighed as he stared deep into the depths of her jar. "What happened is…I wasn't the Savior."

She shook her head. It was clear he thought that answered everything but after all that had happened it didn't seem nearly the complete answer that he seemed to think it was.

"But even Emma said-"

"We didn't see it all. The dream world took us only so far as to see my mother making the curse to protect me because I was the Savior and fated to die. When I left the shop the night before I had intended to destroy her, but I hesitated. She was…"

The silence spoke volumes. "She was your mother," she supplied for him.

He nodded and she was surprised to find that she understood perfectly. As much hate as he'd claimed to have for her in his life she had still been his mother. It would be difficult for anyone to do. But still…

"What happened Rumple? What did she do?"

"She showed me what came next, what happened after the Red Fairy stopped her from casting the curse and realized she was the Evil I was bound to defeat," he answered finally taking his eyes off the rose and moving restlessly around the room. He looked in on Gideon and up at the clock, then out the window and finally when his eyes landed on her own he sat back down on the coffee table opposite her. "The Red Fairy had an idea, how to stop that prophecy from coming true. She found the shears, the same ones I'd threatened to use with Gideon, she told my mother that if she severed her own destiny then she might be able to spare our relationship and I would still be free to do the good in the world I was meant to do."

"But she didn't…" she assumed.

"No…she severed my tie instead, claiming she needed the power to protect me." Well if that wasn't the biggest dose of irony she'd ever heard, she didn't know what was. "I'm not the Savior, Belle. And I couldn't bring myself to destroy her with that knowledge."

In his sadness, she smiled and sat forward so that she could grasp his hand. "But you did Rumple! You did destroy her tonight. You saved Gideon and all the children!" The children. The one part of this she hadn't considered until now. She should have known that Rumple hadn't done what he'd said he was going to do. Gideon had told them that if she were destroyed then her magic, everything she'd created in that realm, would be undone. That must have been why Gidoen was with them now, as a baby. Her magic had influenced time in that realm to work faster, without that influence time had turned back as if none of it had ever happened. And without a Dark Realm to go to, Gideon had ended up where he belonged, back with them. She only hoped that all the other children who had been trapped in that realm would find their way to loving homes just as he had. Maybe there was a way they could get the fairies to check.

"And tonight?" she finally pressed. "What happened tonight?"

He sat quiet for a moment, thinking as he let her hold his hand. "I chose magic," he finally answered. His eyes were distant and unfocused as he remembered something, looked at something that wasn't in the room with them. Then all at once he blinked. He looked at her and then Gideon, and then swallowed when he looked back at her.

"When I let my mother live, I chose magic and the price wasn't just losing my wife and child, my son thought his mother didn't love him, and my wife was afraid to leave her home…it wasn't just me suffering for my choices anymore, it was those I loved. All magic comes with a price and the price was suddenly just…too high to keep paying."

She smiled, feeling something like relief stretch through her heart. There was something different about him in that answer. Something she'd never seen before. It was him. It was a decision that belonged to him. It wasn't Rumple giving up magic because she'd asked him to, or going off to be a hero because he thought that was what she wanted. That decision, that conclusion had been all his own. He hadn't done this for her. It was for him. And it was amazing.

"Rumple…" she leaned forward, hoping the shadows cast by the rose obscured the tears running down her eyes a the moment. "You-"

But before she could get the words out there was a noise coming from the basket, followed by a sneeze and a cry and they were both on their feet in a heartbeat.

"What is it? What's wrong?" she demanded as Rumple reached into their makeshift crib and pulled their son back into his arms.

She watched as he looked him over, the pulled out his own handkerchief to wipe his nose. "Nothing, I think he's just hungry," he answered.

A feeling of dread swirled right down into the pit of her stomach as she looked at the darkness outside of the window then down at her own chest, remembering that it would be as easy as just finding him a place to sleep. And this late at night, after a battle, she knew nothing would be open, not in Storybrooke. Not after a curse.

"Right…food…I-I can't, I'm healed…" Things had progressed too fast and with the fairies magic her breasts had never swollen with milk for a newborn which was exactly what they were in need of right now.

"Relax Belle," Rumple murmured, doing the only thing that actually made her mind calm and setting their son in her arms. "There is fresh milk in the refrigerator. Cow's milk isn't ideal but we'll warm it up and water it down, he'll be fine for the night until we can get him some formula."

She nodded, trusting what he was saying because she didn't know any better. Between the pair of him he was the experienced parent.

"And what do we use for a bottle?"

"We'll think of something," he said confidently, rocking Gideon side to side. "We'll improvise until the sun comes up. He's already experienced the worst of life, anything we give him from here can only be better than what he's had."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! For those of you that are just checking out this fiction, welcome! For those of you who are a fan of the Moments Series, welcome back! I hope you'll enjoy this fiction. It's the 15th in the Moments Series, a series that is an attempt at an accurate portrayal of Belle's perspective during the Once Upon a Time series. This fiction features everything that happened in Storybrooke from the moment that Belle and Rumple first get Gideon back to the family dinner scene in "The Final Battle Part II". 
> 
> If you enjoy this fiction, please comment! I always enjoy those wonderful gems waiting for me in my inbox and I love writing back to thank you personally for reading! It helps me know that I'm doing a decent job! Peace and Happy Reading!


	2. Friendly Reunions

They spent their first night together with Gideon, splitting their time between the kitchen and the living room, neither willing to go into a room that didn't hold their son for more than a few necessary moments. It was almost as if they expected the Black Fairy to return and take him away again if they didn't keep their vigil. They managed to get some milk into him, despite the fact that he wore more of it in the end than he'd consumed, and they used a cloth with a couple of safety pins as a diaper. They had a growing list of things they'd have to get for Gideon in the days and weeks to come and talked through the night on and off as he slept about little things they hadn't had time to talk about in a long while, books and people, town affairs. Somehow the conversation always cycled back to their son, about the future that he'd have and the kind of man he might become under their influence. They never mentioned the Black Fairy or what happened in the cave again.

When she woke the next morning, she found herself tucked into the big armchair that she'd sat down and closed her eyes in for "just for a moment". Her head was on one of the armrests and a big blanket was tucked over her. Rumple was at the other end of the room, the jacket he'd been wearing had been discarded at some point in the night, and now he held their child upright, with a tea towel slung over his shoulder, and Gideon hanging over that same shoulder, squirming as he bounced up and down and patted his back. She was surprised to see Gideon was dressed in fresh clothes.

"Where did you find those?" she wondered, pushing the blanket aside and sitting upright. Rumple spun around at her words and smiled, hardly a step missed even in his shock.

"I went out at first light," he answered. "The milk was giving him gas, and I knew he'd be hungry soon. After I found the car, the Dark Star Pharmacy was the only thing open, so I could only pick up the essentials. A couple of bottles, formula, and diapers. It was practically their entire infant inventory…"

She smiled as she looked over the white outfit with multi-colored balloons all over it. As far as she was concerned, her son was going to be perfect in anything, especially when he was like this; eyes open and wide, taking in the world and every detail like they were new to him. She couldn't wait to see his first smile. Or his first laugh. She wondered what his first word would be.

"He's uh…he's eaten then," she clarified as she wiped the tears from her eyes and watched the two of them.

"Twice, actually. He had quite the appetite."

"No, issues from the milk?"

"Bit of diarrhea earlier but it seems to be passing. We got through the night, but it's formula from now on I think."

She nodded and realized that he wasn't just holding or bouncing for fun and comfort, though Gideon did seem to find entertainment in it. He was trying to burp him. He'd been busy as she slept.

"You could have got me up before you went," she pointed out feeling guilty.

"Nonsense," he muttered. "You were both sleeping soundly, and it was a short trip."

"But if he woke up and you weren't here…"

"You'd figure it out. Just as you did with Neal and Robin," he explained confidently as Gideon finally let out the familiar noise he'd made for them last night and gave the same startled jump at what his body had done as well. She imagined watching him get his first hiccups would be quite the spectacle.

"I was going to make you breakfast," Rumple explained shifting him back in his arms and then turning to place him in her own embrace. "But I figured this was a far better start to your day."

She smiled as she gazed down at her son who immediately raised his fist and latched onto her hair just as Robin had days ago. It was that same impossibly tight and strong grasp that seemed impossible except this time it was her own baby, not a child who belonged to another, hers. He was right. This was a better way to start the day. But the breakfast he made for her was nice too.

Though they had a running list for Gideon, it soon became clear that things to buy for him were not the only chores they'd have to do. A curse had been cast and broken and the only thing that had been returned was their memories. Everything else remained as the Black Fairy had set it. In the daylight, she could easily see that while most of the house was the same, there were slight changes made upstairs. The room that she'd placed her grown son in to spend the night with them was no longer the room Rumple had once crafted for her recovery years ago. Knick-knacks, clocks, tools, and endless gadgets covered the walls along with men's clothing, suits that would not fit Rumple but would have fit her grown Gideon perfectly. It was Gideon's bedroom, but it was too big for him. He needed a crib and a changing table and a rocking chair…not a queen size bed.

Likewise, their room was not "their room" anymore. All traces of her had been removed from the house. There were no clothes in the drawers, no shoes in the closet, the bathroom bore no trace that a woman had ever lived there, and the most frightening realization was that her jewelry box had gone. She'd nearly had a panic attack thinking of the fact that her mother's necklace had been there. But it was alright. As she searched her new memories she had only to remember that she had a similar jewelry box in that spit of a home she'd been placed in, as well as clothes and shoes.

They spent most of their first days together running around town. She made due with what she could get her hands on, and they slowly but surely fulfilled everything on the list for Gideon. By the end of the next day, they'd cleaned the room closest to her bedroom out and placed a new crib, mattress and all, against the wall. He had a changing table stocked with diapers and a rocking chair. She'd managed to find bibs and baby clothes for him at one store while Rumple had stayed in the car while he got fussy. They'd even had time to get him a bookshelf, and the process of finding many good children's books to fill it with was ongoing.

They were so prepared it surprised them how fast they'd come to the conclusion that there were things they didn't need. Rumple, already an expert without all of the technology of this world, had reassured her they didn't need the bathing structure, he already knew how to do it just fine without and they'd already done it once. He wasn't in need of a high chair yet, because he couldn't hold his head up. But when it came to the car seat…she won the battle on that. People may have carried their babies around with them on horseback or on wagons in their world but here not only was a car seat safe, but every other option was illegal. And she had to admit, she probably took a bit too much pleasure at standing in the front window, watching the Dark One install a baby seat in the back of his car.

By the end of two days they were exhausted, but had finally made it to the little house the Black Fairy had cursed her to. The first thing she did was check for her jewelry box, and make sure her mother's necklace was inside, just as she remembered. It was. And with that information she retrieved a couple of suitcases and began to process of going through the clothes the Black Fairy had given her, identifying the ones she wanted, the ones she hated, and the ones that Lacey could easily alter to fit her preferences.

"It belongs to me, you know," she stated as she packed. Rumple was holding Gideon, suddenly awake, in his arms as he sat on the bed in what had been "her room" as she packed. "We can't just leave it here, we'll have to do something with it."

"That's easy enough to take care of," he explained, entertaining their son. "I can have it fixed up and sold easily for profit."

She nodded as she looked around. That was as good an option as any, and she certainly didn't want it.

"I suppose fixed up it'll be a nice little place for a family to live."

"Or a young couple just starting out…it's not very big."

She nodded but suddenly felt the happiness drain from her face unexpectedly. Something about the young couple just starting out had shaken lose something she hadn't thought of in nearly two weeks, and she felt sick to her stomach at the thought that it had escaped her notice for so long.

"Belle? Belle, what's gotten into you? You're white as a sheet!"

"Rapunzel!" she exclaimed. Her legs took her into the kitchen where she looked at the table and the phone as if expecting to see her because what she hadn't understood before was suddenly clear. Maddie! The girl who had made visits to her in her fake memories, who had taken care of her when she wouldn't leave the house, and visited her that very same day-it had actually been Rapunzel! And now…now she was...

She patted herself down frantically as Rumple followed her into the kitchen.

"My phone! I haven't got a phone, I never had one in the curse! I need to call her!"

"Belle what are you raving about?"

"Rapunzel! And Flynn and Ayana, they could be anywhere! Rumple, we have to find them!"

But they both agreed it was too late to do anything about it that night. He assured her all the way back to their home and over dinner that they would find her. She was in town, the Black Fairy was dead and the curse was broken. Rapunzel was probably putting her life together just as much as they were after the curse. She may even be looking for her now.

The next morning they did their best to search with a newborn in their arms. They purchased her a new phone first and foremost, then drove to all the places that she suspected Rapunzel might be at. The library, Flynn's house, the cabin they'd been staying at. All were empty. They even went to Granny's diner, which turned out to be a mistake because all Granny wanted to do was hold Gideon and coo at him while they were desperate for information. But the idea proved useless. In the end, they walked away with free burgers, which Granny had either given them out of pity or in celebration, she couldn't be sure, and the answer that Granny hadn't seen Rapunzel or Flynn, much less Ayana in the diner since the curse was cast. She asked if Granny knew where Rapunzel's parents lived, her last hope to look. But that too was information Granny didn't have.

In the end, she'd walked back down to the library with Rumple and done exactly what she'd done when she'd been looking for Ariel after Zelena's curse broke: she left her a note. She put one on the front desk and one in the apartment. "I'm looking for you, call me if you get this. Belle." She's put her phone number at the bottom and waited.

It was easier than she thought. She hadn't been expecting something as simple as a note not to work because it hadn't for Ariel. But the next day, as she and Rumple sat at the kitchen table contemplating what to do with their day, she'd heard the sound of a jingle in the next room. She'd paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth, not sure if she imagined it or if it was really happening. But when she saw the look on Rumple's face, she was certain, and she rose quickly to fetch the phone and read the unfamiliar number.

"Hello?"

There was noise on the other end, someone breathing too hard or crying or mumbling. The tension was almost too much and she had the sudden urge to bit her fingernails like she used to as a child.

"Hello? Who is this?" she questioned as her heart hammered away in her chest.

Finally, a familiar and tearful voice greeted her on the other end. "You have no idea how happy I am just to hear your voice."

She broken into tears and had to sit down, happy to hear her friend on the other end. They'd had a rough go of it too the last few days. The curse had separated all of them. She'd ended up back with her parents, Flynn had been at his home, his former life the only life in his mind and when the curse finally broke they'd had a difficult time locating Ayana. During the last curse she'd been held captive by a witch, this time around there was no witch, but the family she'd been with hadn't been much better. They'd spent the last few days looking for her. When they'd gotten her back yesterday she'd gone by the apartment to do the same thing she had, leave a note in case she came by. Instead, Rapunzel had found hers.

They talked for over an hour and yet it wasn't enough. They'd barely scratched the surface of what had happened, and she hadn't even had the opportunity to tell Rapunzel Gideon was a baby again when she said that she had to go. Ayana was having a tough time, and Flynn needed her.

"Can I see you tomorrow? We could open the library, try and get things back to the way things were and…I want you to meet Gideon."

There was a pause on the other end of the line before she responded. "Wild horses couldn't stop me."

The arrangements made, they said their good-byes and she felt like she was walking on a cloud all day. There was still a lot to do, a lot of growing and conversations that needed to be had, but with Rapunzel she felt as though the last little bit had fallen into place.

"You seem happier," Rumple commented as they prepared Gideon for bed that night.

"I am," she breathed. "Rapunzel is…well, she's my best friend. She's helped me through a lot when I've been less than easy to deal with and if we're opening up the library then…it's like everything is getting back to normal, isn't it?!"

"Is it?"

His tone made her doubt herself, and she glanced up to find him staring at the pair of them in the rocking chair. Things were getting back to normal, but there was an elephant in the room, an opportunity missed that she almost wished she'd accomplished because now she found she was second-guessing herself.

They were doing fine. They were amiable and working together for the first time in a long time, possibly the first time ever! But every now and then there was an awkwardness between them, a place where something was supposed to be but wasn't. They were amiable, friendly, but she wouldn't exactly say they were husband and wife again. Their touches had been passing brushes revolving around Gideon. They hadn't kissed each other in a long while, not since nearly a week ago outside the shop. And although she could think of times when she would have liked to do it, she hadn't. And now she feared she was over thinking it too much to actually do it. In searching for the right time, she often wondered if it had passed them by without their notice.

This was one of those times, a happy time that would have had her eager to kiss and touch him not in the way parents exchanged touches around their children but in the way lovers did. And yet she couldn't do it. The intimacy was missing. And every time she was aware if it the silence grew and so did her anxiety. She swallowed and rose from her spot in the rocking chair to put her son in his crib, the only thing powerful enough to rid her of the feeling surrounding her. Rumple moved beside her and placed the glass bell jar by his side. Rapunzel found, they'd finally had time to run up to the convent that morning and have the Blue Fairy adjust the magic within it for Gideon. Supposedly the rose was connected to both of them now, not just Rumple, but she had no proof of it. They'd been with Gideon all day, and he hadn't thought of them so the glass hadn't unfogged and she hadn't seen it yet. It was odd not to feel a connection to it herself.

"I want to make Rapunzel Gideon's godmother," she whispered as they stared down at their son, happily asleep.

"An odd thing to say considering the chances he'll ever be without a parent are slim." Rumple commented as they strolled out.

"I know but…I want to," she confessed as he closed the door to Gideon's room. "I named Blue his Fairy Godmother but Rapunzel…she's helped us a lot, Rumple. I want her to be a part of Gideon's life."

He nodded absently as they came to a stop at the top of the stairs. "I'll draw up the paperwork."

The next morning she was happy as she could be. It was Halloween. It was his first holiday with them, and though Rumple had explained he needed more than a night to get the paperwork in order, it was his first meeting with his god-mother today. She wanted him to shine. With some old orange drapes, Lacey had just enough time to make Gideon a small suit that resembled a jack-o-lantern.

With her decision to open the library, Rumple had decided to open the shop once more. The strange phenomena of their "missing piece" haunted them as they'd parked the car and she'd fetched Gideon from the back. It was the first time they'd parted ways in several days for more than a few minutes. She felt the urge to kiss him good-bye, but before she could act on it her mind told her they were late and Rapunzel would be waiting for the two of them by now. He was only going to be across the street, if she needed him, he'd be within reach.

Rapunzel squinted when she walked from the bright day into the dark library. Her excitement at seeing her friend was so great she felt as though a balloon of some kind had swollen in her chest and might explode. But the second the door closed and her eyes adjusted her eyes went nearly as wide as her mouth did. She could see Rapunzel's excitement, she watched as it faded to shock, then pleasant surprise, then back to excitement as she rose from her place behind the desk and made her way over to them nearly breathless. There were tears in Rapunzel's eyes as she stared at the small bundle in her arms. She felt her own cheeks go sore; she was beaming so much.

"That's not…it isn't…"

"Gideon," she choked out adjusting the green hat he was wearing. "The Black Fairy is gone and so is her realm…all the magic there has dissipated as well so…"

Rapunzel shook her head in awe. "I expected…I expected to meet the young man everyone has been talking about but not…"

She stared in astonishment at the baby and at that moment she stepped forward and finally dropped him into her best friend's arms. He twitched a little at the adjustment but stayed asleep just as always, and Rapunzel's eyes watered as she stared down at him.

"Oh…it's nice to meet you, Gideon," she whispered to the sleeping baby.

She had never been one to get tearful at the interactions of others, but watching Rapunzel hold her child for the first time made her cry. Her friend looked up after a while, her own eyes glassy and smiled.

"He's beautiful, Belle!"

She nodded. "You're his god-mother. If you don't mind, of course."

"His…you…you really want to make me…" her chest began to heave as she looked down at the infant she was holding.

"I can't think of a more suitable candidate. We talked about it last night, and after the paperwork is together, it'll be official."

"'We'?" Rapunzel questioned, her head snapping up. She saw her glance at the direction of the pawn shop. "You mean-"

"Rumple and I, yes," she clarified.

For a moment her smile had vanished and she feared what she'd think and say. Would she tell her she was crazy? That this was a mistake, that it was improbable? She wasn't sure she was prepared to defend herself, to defend whatever this crazy thing was that was happening between her and the father of her child all over again. All she knew was that it was different, it felt different than any other time they'd been together. The change was because of Gideon, and what had happened since he'd been born, but she wasn't sure yet how she would begin to describe it all to her! And then Rapunzel's face stretched into a smile, and after adjusting Gideon in her arms she reached out and grabbed for one of her hands.

"I have a feeling you have a great story to tell me!"

She smiled and nodded her head. As far as she was concerned it was the best story she'd ever heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, let's talk about the timeline, shall we? Here's the thing, the scene that we saw at the end of 6x22, the big dinner, there is no way it took place the night after the Black Fairy was destroyed. There was time added in there. How do I know this? Well, there were two big hints. The biggest was David and Mary Margaret. Not only do those scenes show that they have moved into the farmhouse, but they appear to be pretty well settled into that farmhouse. Now, moving quickly is totally possible, but take it from someone who has moved quite a few times in the last few years, I can tell you, that even done quickly, it takes a couple of weeks. Now, one could argue that David and Snow have been looking for a home since season two, but they were never shown beyond that to be packing boxes or moving out of Mary Margaret's loft. In my mind, it is safe to assume that they put their house hunt on hold almost as soon as they started. Your second hint was Hook/David. David is shown working at home while Hook has become the deputy and is learning to drive. Again, these are things that can happen quickly, but it is not a decision or a transition that you make overnight. These things tell me that the big dinner scene didn't take place the next day. However, we also know that it didn't happen months later because when we look at Gideon, he is still small. Now, newsflash, babies grow fast. So, I had to find a happy medium that gave Snow and David enough time to move but not so much time that Gideon would grow. So, here's the cool thing, I've mentioned several times that I keep a calendar for this show, that I'm pretty sure is accurate to within a week or two. When I started this fiction, I consulted that calendar and discovered something awesome. Gideon was born on October 14, 2013. The Black Fairy was destroyed and Gideon was returned on October 26, 2013. Gee...if only there was a holiday soon after where families typically get together and have dinner. And wouldn't it be even better if that holiday had been referenced by one of the main characters back in the second season as something that might potentially be awkward?! If you are thinking of Thanksgiving...ding ding ding! You win! Five weeks...this fiction has a timeline of five weeks. The way I wrote it, that's enough time for David and Snow to get into their new house (you'll see the circumstances), for David to transfer his job to Hook, for Hook to learn to drive, for Belle and Snow to work on their relationship, and yet, it's a short enough that Gideon will still be small at the dinner. And don't worry, if you are thinking "but Belle is wearing a sundress", I'm going to cover that too (and then point out that everyone else comes to dinner in jackets, coats, turtlenecks, and long sleeves). So? Can we live with that? We all good?
> 
> Big thank you to MissBansheeAbby for your comments on the last chapter. I'm so happy to have you continuing to read and I'm so happy to how excited you are for this fiction. I'm super excited for it too! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and Rapunzel's return! I did promise, after I got rid of her in the last fiction, that she would be back for this one and back she is. In fact, other than the Gold Family, I'd say Rapunzel is the supporting character you are going to see the most of so if you are a Belle/Rapunzel fan-rejoice! So, these two chapters take care of Week One out of the Five. Coming up next we'll start Week Two and we'll talk next about the kind of chapters you'll find in this fiction as well as all those to come. Not really a timeline problem, but certainly something to do with it. Peace and Happy Reading!


	3. All That Follows

The room was closing in on her. It was growing smaller and smaller by the second. She fought to keep the padded walls away from her, to stop their shrinking, she was pressing against them with everything she had, all the while, aware of a voice laughing at her through a little glass hole in the metal door. A woman with a slim face, entertained by her suffering, caught her eye as she screamed and cried for rescue.

"You can't always get what you want, now can you, Belle."

The ground had just begun to turn to fire and the walls to red, it was enough reminder to tell her she was dreaming. She could rescue herself! Aurora had taught her how to free herself from the Red Room she just had to get control and-

"Wake up!"

She gasped as she sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard, feeling far more exhausted than she had when she'd gone to sleep. But she was surprised to find she wasn't alone as she had been when she went to bed. Rumpelstiltskin was sitting at her side, still wearing his suit pants and dress shirt, he'd shed his jacket, vest, and tie just as he had been doing every day after work. His shoes were off, he'd been walking around in his socks and even she recognized that it was odd that was what she took note of when his hands were wrapped around her forearms, holding her up as she glanced to their open bedroom door. She was awake.

"You're okay," he breathed. "You're alright."

She wouldn't have guessed that from the way her heart was racing, or how desperate her lungs were for air.

"It was only a nightmare," he soothed finally loosening his grip so she could hold herself up. "I could hear you all the way downstairs. The asylum again?"

She nodded, embarrassed that after all this time it was still her nemesis. All the horrors she'd known in her life, and that silly little room still had the ability to fling her from sleep and give her a panic attack! Well, that silly little room and a bit more.

"It's always the asylum, only this time-"

They both ceased moving and talking as a sound drifted in through the open door, one they could both easily identify and were immediately attentive to. Gideon was awake too.

Rumple glanced back at her, then quickly released the last of his hold, it was only then that she realized he'd been holding her hand. "I'll get him."

He was out of the room in a flash, leaving her alone to soothe her own heartbeat…just as he had every night since their first night here as a family. It had been one week, one week since they had Gideon back and though things still were getting to resemble normal, every day she was made more and more aware of the ways in which they were not normal. This was one of them.

Normal was having him here. Normal was sleeping in his arms, by her side because it kept nightmares like this at bay. Normal would have been a nightmare in which Regina laughed at her from the other side of the window, not the Black Fairy. Normal was a woman unafraid to kiss her husband…

And there was perhaps the point that bothered her the most. It had been a week since they'd gotten Gideon back, and more than a week since she'd last kissed her own husband. It was a silly thing to be bothered by, but something that was growing, chafing at her every single day there were here together. They were doing fine, great really, Gideon was cared for every night. The library and the shop were back to fully functioning parts of the town. She had keys to the house, car, library, and shop again. On Monday the schools were supposed to open for children now that the curse had been mostly cleaned up and families were reunited. Things were so calm again that they'd made an appointment for someone to come Tuesday to change the sign over the Pawn Shop back to Gold's instead of "Gold and Son"! Things were so close to being normal again. And yet every single day they had dinner together, put their son to bed in his room and then parted at the stairs and every night her blush grew hotter than the night before. She slept in their room every night, he went downstairs and whenever she rolled over she could hear him tinkering away at little gadgets and broken antiques. They hadn't kissed, they'd barely touched other than quick exchanges to hand Gideon to one or the other, the signs of affection they had been showing in the start of the week seemed to be fading with every passing day. Every day it became more and more awkward, and every day she questioned whether or not it was right.

The first few nights she'd told herself it was fine, that maybe going slowly was good for them. But now she found herself constantly wondering and frustrated over it. Slow was good but how slow was too slow?! It would be up to her to determine that, she knew that much. Her husband was too chivalrous a man to be the one to initiate anything beyond what he was certain she wanted. That had always been clear even in the earliest stages of their relationship, when they'd been in the castle and gone the perhaps the slowest. His affection matched her own but would go no further, and now she felt as though it was burning her up from the inside out.

So she did what she always did when that feeling took over, she focused on Gideon. Her heart beating normally and her breathing restored she found her slippers and wandered down the hall to where she found Gideon and Rumple sitting together in the rocking chair by the bed. To her surprise, it was lit in a reddish-gold light!

"His rose! It works!" she exclaimed moving over to examine it further. "He was thinking about us."

But her stomach gave an uneasy lurch when she looked at it and realized the rose wasn't what she remembered. When she'd first uncovered it for him and been linked only to him it had been strong and healthy. But this rose, she was shocked to find, was wilting. It had petals missing, floating toward the bottom of the glass jar. It worried her. When Mother Superior had linked it to both of them, she'd said only that it would reflect the two of them now. But he was immortal and she…she wasn't feeling particularly sick at the moment. Why on earth would it look like that?

"Worrying about us is probably more accurate," Rumple muttered at her from the rocking chair, reminding her that it was well past midnight and Gideon was awake. She should worry about the rose, about the pair of them, when she was sure he was fine.

"I'm sorry. Did I frighten him?"

"Hard to tell," he answered tucking a blanket tight around him. "You were crying out, but there's only one way to know for sure…" With that Rumple rose from his seat and stood toe to toe with her so that he could settle Gideon into her arms. Almost instantly Gideon began to calm, looking up at her with tearful eyes that nearly made her cry.

"There now," he whispered. She was the medicine that he had needed. It was a touching reality until she realized she'd also been the cause of the problem.

"I didn't mean to frighten him," she apologized, kissing his head as his eyelids began to droop again.

"You can't help nightmares, Belle, not after what you've been through."

"I thought they'd fade after a while, at least I'd hoped they would..."

"They have," he assured her. "There was a time you were up every other night with them. One every few weeks is progress."

She smiled, the memories from all those times she'd truly been startled awake in tears were somehow still fresh. As were the memories of his arms around her, his body pressed against his own, the soothing words he'd whisper until she stopped whimper ad kept watch so she could sleep again. The feeling of his fingers on her back were so vivid she would have believed he was doing it now if he wasn't standing in front of her.

"You used to rub my back until I fell back to sleep," she pointed out, blushing.

"It seemed to bring you some comfort." Yes, he'd told her once that was why he did it. That even in sleep, it seemed to have a calming effect on her, and he'd liked knowing that he had that power, no magic required.

She was smiling when she looked up into his eyes, but the moment she saw them illuminated in the glow of their rose, it faded. That feeling again, the one that made her heart pound nervously, the one that made her want to push away from him just as much as she wanted to pull him closer...it was back. Her head felt light, and the world began to spin around them as she considered what she was supposed to do. Was it the right time? Was it not? Was it too soon? If something happened now would it go too far too fast? If nothing happened now would it ever happen? Was it too late?

"He's quiet now," Rumple finally muttered, breaking her string of thought and forcing her to look down at their son. He was right. She'd lost time standing there staring at him and now Gideon was happily asleep again. The light from his rose had died as the glass fogged over once more. Then, without warning lit up once more. She looked down at her son, but he was sleeping just as deeply as he had been a second ago.

"It would appear that so long as your dreams are pleasant, his should be too."

She smiled, realizing what Rumple had already put together in his own head. He was dreaming of them.

"You should go back to sleep, Belle. I'll put him to bed."

That was becoming normal. He'd been keeping watch over Gideon during the nights this past week, letting her sleep so that she was awake and happy the night day. She kept expecting the way it taxed him to show on his face, but it never seemed to. Even now as he carefully maneuvered their child out of her arms and back into his own, he always seemed happy for the opportunity to watch over him. He was a good father.

"Rumple…"

She wanted to say something, to express something important to him, but staring at him with their son she couldn't for the life of her remember what those sentiments were. Words were lost behind tears of gratefulness and adoration gathering in her eyes. And with a surprisingly steady hand, she found herself reaching up to trace the curve of his jaw. She watched mesmerized as she let her thumb brush against the skin on his cheek and he closed his eyes to let himself melt into her touch. She'd been looking all this week for signs of tension in his eyes or face; she hadn't realized until just now he'd been carrying it in his neck and shoulders. For the sigh that escaped from his chest was deep and could be nothing else but the release of what he'd been holding in, unwilling to give until she made it clear she was willing to take.

For once in a long time, too long for her to remember neither body nor mind rebelled against him. With the slightest bit of pressure against the back of his neck he lowered his head just as she wanted and when he was the proper distance, she leaned forward and put her lips to his. It was a small kiss, a shadow, an echo, of the kisses they had once shared in the midst of late night passion. But it was tender and loving enough to make her heart hammer. She could feel her pulse drumming at her throat and every place their skin touched. His neck beneath her hand. Her nose brushing next to his own. Their mouths that separated only for a second after their first kiss before they both moved for a second, even smaller kiss.

She couldn't open her eyes afterwards, just let her hand linger over his shoulder and their foreheads bend together as they breathed. A kiss. Two kisses actually. Two kisses after such a long, long time…since before he'd left for the Underworld. Just after Gideon was conceived. That would have been nearly two months ago, at least. She'd kissed him once before he'd gone off to face his mother over a week ago but it had been so hurried and frenzied, full of emotion and busy that after experiencing this she wasn't sure she could count it. That had been something entirely different than what had just passed between them.

Standing against him now she had the distinct feeling that it had been too long…and yet just right. Beside them, Gideon gave a jerk and took a deep breath. He awoke suddenly and gurgled breaking their small bubbled as they both looked down to check on him. Awake, but not upset. Certainly, sleepy though, if it his eyes were any indication. She smiled as she leaned down to kiss her little man on the forehead and whisper happy things into his ear. He quickly squirmed closer to his father, and dropped back into sleep in record time. As much as she wanted to hold him again, she too was itching for sleep, and Rumple had already volunteered. Father-son bonding was just as important as mother and son.

"Good-night my sweet men," she whispered to her son, loud enough for Rumple to hear.

"Good-night, Belle," he whispered back sounding breathless as she'd gone. She blushed when she left the room, a blush that was far different from what she'd been doing when she normally went to bed. And perhaps it was a trick of the light, or merely her imagination, but on her way out she could have sworn she saw a familiar wink and glimmer come from the rose by Gideon's crib. Something she knew to be a fallen petal attaching itself to a green stem that suddenly stood a little taller.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really what Moments Grown was always meant to be about. I know I already mentioned this in Moments Explored and Unexplored, but the entire reason I separated these two fictions is because they had two very different purposes. While MX&U was meant to heal their foundation, MG was always meant to turn them into a couple again, give them a healthy marriage, and restore intimacy as they took care of their son. I liked the idea that they try in this fiction to go slow. A theme throughout all of Moments is that these two have been all or nothing from the first moment they got together and this is both of them saying "wait, hold up, let's take this one step at a time." It's meant to harken back to their days in the castle and help them fall in love all over again. This fiction, in many ways, is a slow burn...even if it's only 14 chapters.
> 
> Thank you to Taisch and Goldspinner for your comments on the last chapter, I'm so happy that you enjoyed it! Now I did mention that I would talk a bit about how these chapters as well as many of the next few fictions were going to be set up in this chapter. The way Moments Grown is set up is nothing new. Moments fictions have always either had a short couple of weeks timeframe with chapters that come one right after another or a longer weeks/months/years timeframe with chapters that are more scattered. Obviously, at fourteen chapters to cover a 5 week period of time, MG is the second one. This means that a lot of my "writing rules" go out the window. I don't really have a word limit I like to hit, I just write for as long as the chapter requires. This also means that there is not so many filler chapters because there is no use for them in fictions where a big amount of time is covered. Each chapter introduces you to what has been going on, tells you the important things you need to know, makes it's point and it's done. I do hope that you don't mind these kinds of chapters because I'm warning you now that the next Moments fiction done in this way as well. Sorry, it's just the way things are. Peace and Happy Reading!


	4. Natural Outcomes of Unnatural Actions

She thought that after that first kiss things would go back to the kind of normal that they had lived in months ago. But they didn't. Instead, it only seemed to make things worse. In the days that followed, it was as if they'd gone back decades in time, to stolen moments of flirtation and hesitation when they were in the castle, when they both grew to like each other, but weren't really sure how the other felt about them. There were glances, timid smiles, and lots of blushing, at least on her part. But he didn't kiss her, not like she had kissed him that night.

Instead, he maintained a comfortable but respectful distance. It was days later that she was finally able to decipher why. He was afraid that she'd want to take it back. She'd made the first move, and in typical fashion, at least romantically, he was waiting for her to make a second move, and a third, and a fourth. He was waiting for confirmation that what happened that night in Gideon's room hadn't been just gratitude, or the rose, or weather, or something in their food, or some great astronomical event that had happened lightyears away and convinced her to kiss him. So she began to give him the confirmation he needed, little hints in the following week that couldn't be considered accidents and were obviously deliberate.

As the three of them sat together at breakfast one morning she squeezed his shoulder when she stood up to do the dishes. One afternoon, when she dropped Gideon off at the shop so that she and Rapunzel could go talk over an extended lunch, she'd kissed him on the cheek, right there in front of her friend. And when nothing managed to come of that, she went for bold. The next night they stood together washing dishes at the sink while Gideon napped close by. Now and then when he passed her a dish to load into the dishwasher, they would pass a small smile out of the joy of normalcy, and it was then that she finally let her hands roam up and over his shoulders. She made her way between his body and the sink and managed to kiss him for the first time in days. Though he had to have seen it coming, he'd somehow been surprised. He was even more surprised when one kiss became two. And that second kiss became a third, with a fourth buried in a sigh that had both their mouths opening and their arms clinging tighter to one another than they had in a long time. In fact, she was certain that kiss might have become something more if Gideon hadn't chosen that moment to wake up and he'd accidentally bit her tongue.

They'd both blushed a bit as they retrieved him and went about their usual business that night, even as she continued to sleep in their bedroom and he continued to tinker downstairs. It was good. They were beginning to relax around each other again and returning to one another, to a level of intimacy they hadn't had in a very long time. It was slow, but it was the right pace all at the same time. Still, she couldn't help but notice the fact that she was always the one to initiate romantic steps and she found herself wishing that they would finally get to a place where it could be the other way around.

She finally made it to the grocery store. It was a small triumph, a dream that both of them had always had because it always seemed that they were in the midst of chaos or trouble and eating at Granny's. But they'd finally achieved it. Gideon needed diapers, they'd needed food, and after assuring her he had no issues walking home from the shop, she'd taken the car and Gideon with her to the store. It was far different than the one time she'd been here with him when he was older. Now instead of walking by her side, she fit him in one of the special carts that allowed him to lay on top. She had a packed diaper bag hanging from her side instead of simply her purse. And instead of asking questions constantly he'd been happy to stare at the lights above him and listen to the sound of her voice.

"What should we have for dinner tonight?" she questioned after collecting his diapers and a few other essentials. "Your father likes chicken pot pie, but the question is can you sleep long enough for mummy to make it the way he likes? Or should we go with something simple like sausage and baked beans?" Gideon didn't respond, of course, just stared up at the lights and began to suck on air with ease, giving her the answer she needed. "Chicken pot pie it is, then. You know, Gideon, your father will-oh! Gideon!"

Her heart hammered as she'd turned the corner and nearly ran her cart into another. She was quick to cover Gideon, ready to scoop him out at a moments notice before she realized that everything was fine. The cart was on four wheels. He was fine, she was fine, and the cart she'd nearly run into-

She looked up to check on the other person and to her horror found the face of her father staring down at her. His mouth was open as he came to the same conclusions that she had, nearly as slowly. His eyes passed between her and Gideon, perhaps looking at the same features that Rumple often told her they shared, perhaps even picking out the hair that was starting to take on the same color as his mother's.

"Father," she muttered finally finding her voice. "This is…we're…" But before she could get the words out, her father had closed his mouth, turned, and leaving his cart there in the aisle, he left the store without saying another word.

She'd stood there perfectly still for a long while, shocked and attempting to process what had just happened. And then her body began to move. Fast. She'd done the rest of her shopping in a state of paranoia, her heart hammering faster every moment she was there, wondering if her father would come back if he was outside in the parking lot, if he was waiting to confront her! Looking back, she'd been able to see the anger in his eyes right beside all the other emotions, and she wasn't certain she was ready to face him like that, especially with Gideon at her side. And the feeling that everyone who had witnessed the incident was following her, that they were watching her and dying to know what she was going to do. If she would break or scream or cry…

She collected sausage and beans, kept her head down as she paid, then loaded Gideon up in the car and drove home. Predictably, he'd fallen asleep on the car ride, and she'd set him down in the little bassinet they kept downstairs for him to sleep as she unloaded the bags. In the end, she regretted not buying the items for potpie. The busy work would have felt good when she couldn't keep her mind still and with Gideon asleep she had time…

She went up to their room and retrieved one of Lacey's projects, a dress that was far too plain for her tastes, and Lacey cringed at inside of her every time she looked at it. It was perfect for a day like today. She skipped the sketch pad, knowing already exactly what she wanted to do to it, then sat at her sewing station in the dining room and began to cut, pin, and finally sew it together the way she'd dreamt of. It was dark and she was nearly finished by the time she heard the door open.

She must have looked like a mad woman when he found her. Baby in the corner, scraps of fabric all around her, the machine's needle flying at top speed as she shortened the dress…it stopped him in his tracks. He gently peered into the bassinet to find Gideon still slumbering peacefully then looked her over again and pulled a chair to her.

"It can't be a good thing when I find you working at that thing with such a frenzy."

The words broke her, because they were true. She'd been searching all evening for something to call the run-in with her father, but he'd named it for her despite not wanting to. It wasn't good. It was bad.

She breathed deeply as she took her foot off the pedal and sat back in her chair, unable to meet his gaze. "I took Gideon to the grocery store today…we ran into my father."

There was a pause filled with unnerving silence that stretched before them, making him feel like he was sitting across the room instead of right next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him glance into the corner where Gideon slept away in his bassinet before he turned back to her.

"I take it the encounter didn't go well."

She let out a breath of a laugh because the mere suggestion that it might have after what actually happened was hysterical.

"It didn't."

He let out a sigh, of nervousness or disappointment, she couldn't tell without looking at him. But at the moment she was so lost in her own headspace she wasn't sure she could bring herself out of it enough to look.

"That's probably my fault," he finally muttered. "Our previous encounter wasn't exactly a positive one."

"And I still haven't left you and gone sulking back to him," she added angrily. It wasn't his fault. Not entirely. Part of the anger her father had for the pair of them wasn't due to Rumpelstiltskin but rather because she chose to continue making a life with him. Tomorrow, if she took Gideon and went to her father and begged he take her back and that she was wrong for loving him, he would. In truth, he was probably far angrier at her than he was at Rumple and just didn't realize it. It was the same situation she'd found herself in after David, Hook, and Zelena had tried to hurt Gideon. She expected behavior like that from Zelena and recognized she'd been stupid to think anything more than what she was. Therefore, she'd been angrier at David and Hook for their part in it than Zelena. As far as her father was concerned Rumple was the villain. Taking her away was just doing what villains always do, but she was his little girl. He'd expected more of her than willingly staying with the man who had taken her prisoner. To him, she was sure the only way things would ever be right was if she left her husband and she wasn't about to do that, not now that things finally seemed to be turning around for them.

She finally picked her head up and glanced over at him, only to find him hunched over the chair, looking sadly at the floor, equally unable to meet her own gaze as she had been his own. Guilt. It wasn't nervousness; it was guilt.

"I know you went to see him when I was under the sleeping curse."

He nodded and risked a glance up into her eyes. "I did. How did you know that?"

"Aurora. She found me in the red room and tried to wake me. When I told her I sent you to my father she checked and once I was awake…she told me he was unwilling to help unless you agreed to leave me. You didn't tell him about Gideon."

He shook his head. "No, I didn't," he confirmed. "I didn't think that confirmation of any relationship we had going further was the right way to approach it. I'm not sure he would have even kept to the deal if I'd told him you were."

She sighed and offered only a slight nod in agreement. He was right. Knowing her father, he'd have thought that she was better off never waking up than waking up and raising her baby, his grandchild, with the Dark One.

"It's only been a month or so, do you think he recognized Gideon when you met him? Do you think he knew-"

"He knew," she interrupted, confident that there was no use in even debating such a thing. "He looks so much like the two of us, and after what happened after he was born the whole town talked. Even if he only thought it was a rumor there is no doubt now…how could he not know after today? And the look he gave Gideon…" she shook her head, unable to fathom how anyone could give her baby or any baby such a look as his own grandfather had given Gideon.

"It figures, I finally did what he always wanted me to do, got married and had a baby, and he can hardly stand the sight of me...or Gideon!"

"That's not your fault, Belle. And some people, people like your father…nothing you do will ever be enough."

She nodded. That much she understood, but she just couldn't make her peace with it, not now that she had Gideon. She had dreams for him of course, big dreams, but if he announced one day that he had decided to be a dancing juggler for the circus, she wouldn't deny him because that wasn't her dream for him. At least she liked to think that she wouldn't. But what made her heart break even more was the knowledge of what had to inevitably follow an encounter like this, the recognition of a truth that she'd long since hoped might never come to pass.

"I can try if you like," Rumple muttered sitting forward and looking at her with a gaze of hope mingled with fear. "I can try talking to him, see if there is anything to be done."

That was a sweet offer and very uncharacteristic. It was an offer she'd never expected to hear from Rumpelstiltskin in the first place. But she doubted that any conversation he could ever attempt to have with her father even if it was on behalf of his wife and son would ever go well. However, the fact that he was willing to make such an offer and expose himself like that made one corner of her mouth turn up in a smile. Sad as this situation was, an offer like that gave her hope.

"I don't think any conversation you could ever have with my father would help," she admitted sitting forward in her chair so that their knees brushed and their hands and heads hung there in defeat together. "I think I have to let him go," she muttered sadly. "Let go of this vision I've had of the three of us as a family and my father being happy about it. I can't have both of you."

"I don't want to force you to have to choose between two people you love," he whispered back.

"You aren't the one making me choose, Rumpelstiltskin, he is!" she insisted. "He's the one that can't seem to get past the fact that I married you and I don't ever see him taking to the fact that you are the father of his grandchild. He's the one that can't accept that, not you. And so long as he's asking me to choose, the answer will be the same as it's always been."

The hand that had been carelessly brushing against his knuckles reached forward a few extra inches so that she could purposefully tangle their fingers together.

"I choose you," she declared, letting her forehead drop against his own as she said the words she swore only months ago she'd never say again! "As long as you choose us, I choose you, the family we've made. If he can't accept that then…I have to say good-bye to him."

She choked on the last of her words, not wanting them to be true. She felt like she'd been in this place half a dozen times in her short time in Storybrooke and each time she said it her father ended up coming back into their lives, but there was something about the finality of this particular declaration that made her realize it was no longer an uncertainty. It was the end. Today was probably the last she'd ever seen of her father and certainly the last day that she was going to let his stubbornness haunt her. No matter what happened between her and Rumple, this was it.

Across from her, Rumple squeezed her hand in his own, then took the other and swiped his thumb across a tear that had been moving over her cheek.

"I choose us," he muttered. "I've made too many poor choices and seen the consequences to choose anything else other than you anymore. I choose us."

"We choose each other," she corrected, her throat closing with emotion. "And Gideon."

"Especially Gideon."

His certainty made her laugh, a small snort but a noise that put a smile on her face all the same. And then, without permission or invitation, he closed the distance and kissed her. It was unexpected but entirely appropriate for what was coming to pass. It warmed her heart and dried her salty tears as she kissed him back for a few brief and blissful seconds before they heard the sounds of their waking child in the corner and had to separate.

"I'll get him," he informed her.

"I'll start dinner."

He nodded in response, then quickly leaned forward to steal one more kiss before rising and going to greet their son. She couldn't help but put her hand to her mouth as she watched the pair of them in the corner together. It was nice to be kissed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main purpose of Moments Grown was to restore the intimacy yadda yadda yadda...the second purpose of Moments Grown was to bridge the gap. It's here to close some of the open storylines from BBG (Before Baby Gideon) as well as serve as an introduction for the storylines PBG (Post Baby Gideon). Not only does that mean healing things between Belle and Snow (you'll see that later) but a big part of that, in my book, was always to address Belle and her father. Now, truthfully, I would have loved to give not only Belle a happy ending where that is concerned, but us as well. But there were two reasons I didn't. The first was characterization. I'm sorry, but after everything that has happened, I just don't see Belle's father coming around for anything short of Belle turning up on his doorstep and saying she was wrong. I just don't see it as something he'd be willing to compromise on. The second was simply this...life isn't perfect. These may be storybook characters but they are in our world now and the sad truth is that not every story has a happy ending, not every relationship heals, not every relationship survives. Humans are brutal, and sometimes we have to make choices we don't want to. For that reason, I felt that a chapter like this was called for. And, hey, I did use it to bring Rumple and Belle closer together even as Belle and her father get farther apart. I felt it was good for Rumple to hear that verbal "This isn't your fault, I choose you" from Belle and be able to let go of guilt on the matter as well as acknowledge that being in this relationship means they both have to get up things they love. I hoped that this chapter would have a feeling of vow renewal. There is a conscious choice here that they are sticking to each other now and the family that they have made. And that is beautiful to me.
> 
> Thank you to Taisch and Goldspinner for your comments on the previous chapter! I'm so thrilled to be getting such a wonderful response for this fiction! I know this chapter is just as much a downer as it is an upper, but I hope you'll appreciate it for the good that will come from it and not the bad. That being said, final as this may seem, we will hear more about the conflict between Belle and her father in the next Moments fic, but it's a lot more removed than this chapter is. With this chapter, you've seen Maurice for the last time. Peace and Happy Reading!


	5. Life Lessons

She remembered just how crazy Snow White had been that first time David insisted she leave Neal alone for the first time after his birth. It had only been a little less than two weeks, but she remembered trying to hide her laughter as she'd gone over emergency numbers and changed her mind a dozen times before David finally got her out of the apartment. And she remembered the way that she'd called almost immediately because she'd forgotten a walkie-talkie or something or other that was insignificant. She remembered how silly she thought her behavior was. But only two mornings after she'd encountered her father at the grocery store, she had a sudden revelation that Snow's behavior was anything but silly.

"You want us to go out?! Without Gideon?!" she clarified, scooping her child up and out of his arms so that she could hold him closer. The very suggestion that she, or either of them, be away from him made her nervous. He'd made the suggestion, or rather the request, at breakfast time. He'd asked her out to dinner that evening and done it sweetly enough that she hadn't truly understood what he'd been suggesting until she had agreed. It was only after she mentioned that she'd make sure Gideon was packed for something like that he'd told her that he'd been hoping it would just be the two of them.

"What on earth could be so important that we'd leave him behind?!"

It seemed preposterous. Crazy! Leave their child? So they could go to dinner? Had he gone mad?!

"We need to get out of this house," he reasoned, rising so he could put the plates in the sink, as if this was just a normal conversation, as if he hadn't just suggested the impossible!

"We get out of the house! We leave every day for the shop, for the library, for…for the grocery store-"

"And nowhere else," he stressed, looking almost amused at her reaction. "I'm not suggesting we leave him alone in the house or with monsters. Your friend Rapunzel, she could watch him, she seems fond of him."

"She adores him, but that's not a good reason to leave him behind."

"He's almost a month old."

"He's only been a baby for two weeks, he's not ready to be away from us, and there is no reason!" she shrieked.

Gideon stirred in her arms at the noise, and she immediately shifted him, holding him closer and bouncing him up and down so that he'd quiet. It took several minutes for him to settle, she'd hoped with every last minute that Rumple might leave the kitchen and forget the conversation, but he didn't. Rumple had remained leaning against the sink, arms crossed, patiently waiting. She'd hoped it had taken long enough that the conversation would have died, but when Gideon had calmed and she picked her head up, she could see him staring at her expectantly. He wasn't done discussing it, but she was. Wasn't this as obvious to him as it was to her?

"Bad things happen when we're apart," she finally muttered. That was just it. She'd let Gideon go, and he'd ended up in the hands of the Black Fairy, she'd let Rumple go to the Underworld, and they'd fought for over a month after she woke up from a sleeping curse! She'd left his castle and been imprisoned by Regina! No. She wasn't ready to let something like that happen again. And she couldn't believe he would be the one suggesting something like this. Wasn't he the one that was usually all for being locked away in towers and ships where it was safe?

Across the room, Rumple let out a sigh and began to move toward her. "My darling, Belle…that is exactly why we need to leave him for a night," he muttered, placing his hands over her arms. "You need to leave him to see that bad things don't always happen."

"And what if they do?"

"They won't."

"But what if they do!"

"If something bad happens then...after we rectify it you have my permission to take him with you everywhere you go until you say otherwise! But for tonight…we need to talk."

He expected words like that to make her feel better? Nothing good ever seemed to follow those words.

"What do we need to talk about?"

"Something. Anything that isn't Gideon."

"We can talk here! We've been talking here!"

"Belle, all I'm asking is to take my wife to dinner and talk to her for an extended period without being interrupted for a diaper change or a feeding. We can't do that here with Gideon. Give me one night, three hours to prove to you that we can leave him alone without something bad happening. Please."

In the end, it was the please that got her. It was the please that made the words "you can have two hours and not a minute more" pop out of her mouth before she'd gone upstairs to finish getting Gideon ready. A smile of triumph tugged at the corners of his mouth the entire way into town. And after talking with Rapunzel, she knew he probably would be smiling for the rest of the night. A small part of her had hoped that he'd be wrong, that Rapunzel might say she and Flynn were already planning some big date themselves and didn't want to be disturbed. Instead what she got was happy and positive response.

"That would be great! Flynn is working late tonight, so I was just going to go back to his place and wait, but I'd love to take care of Gideon. Wouldn't that be wonderful, little guy?! We'll read books and play games, you can take a nap and I can watch you sleep, and eat those little toes, nom, nom, nom!"

And so, as her best friend feigned munching on her newborn's toes, she felt a wave of dread wash over her almost instantly. The last of her excuses had faded, and so, at six o'clock she put her baby into Rapunzel's arms, double then triple checked to make sure that she had everything she would need and more, then left her son in the building without her. It was the first time he'd been away from both his parents since he'd returned to them and just stepping outside the door nearly gave her a panic attack. Until she placed her hand on the shop's door and heard voices inside...not unfamiliar voices. Regina?

Unable to hear what she was yelling about in the back room she let herself into the shop, instantly their voices became clear, though the situation wasn't.

"It'll take you an hour, no more, to make what they need."

"And I said I'm sorry, but I'm not interested, now or in the future."

Behind the curtain, she heard Regina scoff. "Unbelievable. I never thought I'd live to see the day that the Dark One couldn't come up with a simple  _Somniom Interumpit_!" The curtain to the back was suddenly dashed aside as Regina stormed out, frustrated.

"It's not a matter of 'can't' Dearie! Just a matter of 'unwilling'. And if it's such a simple spell, then you'll have no problem brewing it up yourself."

Regina spun on her heel and looked back at him, her hand raised and her mouth open, looking as though she was ready to argue again but quickly took a step back and shook her head.

"I'm not even going to respond to that. I'm done!" But her eyes caught hers as she wound a scarf around her neck. "Try and talk some sense into him, won't you…it's for a good cause if someone can get through his thick skull!"

The door slammed as Regina left. It let out such a loud crack that she had to look behind her to see if any of the windows had broken.

"What was all that about? What's wrong?" she questioned, looking back at him suspiciously. Suddenly every fiber of her being wanted to dash across the street to Gideon again.

"Nothing that concerns us," he muttered as he pulled his coat on over his suit jacket. "But there is a six thirty reservation that does…"

 _La Tandoor_ …the "fine dining restaurant" in Storybrooke, the only place that Granny didn't consider competition because they were too far out of her league to bother her. Rumple had been promising to bring her to this place for years, from the time she'd been Lacey as a matter of fact. They'd almost made it once in their time together, but it was the night that Emma had chosen to take him with her to the Underworld and they'd had to cancel and go to Granny's instead. As they were led to their table, which just so happened to be in a private dinning room, she had the distinct feeling that he'd made reservations for this evening days ago and had intelligently chosen not to tell her this morning either because he didn't want to give her time to back out or because he was afraid history might repeat itself again and they wouldn't be able to go. But in the last couple of weeks since the Black Fairy's demise even she was surprised at how quiet it had been in Storybrooke. In fact, until this afternoon she would have said they were unnaturally normal.

She waited until the waitress had taken their orders and opened the bottle of wine to ask him about it. The truth was that he made it easy to ask. Even though he put on a smile, she could see that hidden behind it something was bothering him, and she knew it was the encounter with Regina. The question was how to approach it so that he'd tell her what was going on.

" _Somniom Interumpit…_ " she murmured after their salads came. "Commonly called 'The Interrupter of Dreams, that's a powerful potion."

"Indeed it is," he answered quietly, reaching for the pepper.

"Why would Regina want it?"

He was silent for a few seconds as he chewed, slowly. It was the seconds that made her nervous, that made her wonder if he was searching for an excuse or some topic that might change the course of their conversation. That would have been a bad sign, a significant step back from what they'd achieved since the Black Fairy's death a few weeks ago! And she was just beginning to wonder how much things had really changed when he began to spin a tale for her, the same one that Regina had told him, supposedly.

There was an old woman who lived in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Storybrooke. Somehow Snow had stumbled upon her, she was alive quite clearly, but they'd been unable to wake her. They'd had Whale rush her to the hospital but while the woman was sick, deathly ill, in fact, he'd been unable to find a medical reason for her sleep. They'd had Aurora venture into the Red Room to see if someone had placed her into a Sleeping Curse, but she'd come back with no such news. The reason for her sleep was a mystery, and so they'd turned to the only thing they could which was magic. Regina believed that while she wasn't cursed someone was holding onto her in her dreams, to the point where the woman might not even know that she was dreaming. If they could break into her dreams, then there was a chance that perhaps they could figure out what was holding her and free her from her slumber.

"And the sleeping dust, what you had from Morpheus, that wouldn't work?"

"Not entirely..." he explained just after their main course had arrived. "There is a window of opportunity to use that dust and only so many things that you could use it on. Her dream is already in progress, so whoever this individual is, whoever is holding her in her dream, the connection would first need to be severed or weakened to allow others to access it."

"And the Interrupter of Dreams could do that?"

He nodded. "It would weaken the bond long enough that Snow could use the dust to access the woman's dreams. In a sense, it would force the dream's creator to create a new dream where there were three instead of two, from there she could do her work, or if the sorcerer is particularly powerful, it might allow her to get a good glimpse of him before he banishes her from the dream."

"Because whoever is holding her there would have to be in the same condition. They'd be asleep as well."

"And if they were awoken and her jailer stripped of magic then they could prevent it from happening again."

"So why does Regina want you to do it? Why can't she do it herself?"

"Because it's a powerful and delicate spell, too much for the likes of Regina. Too powerfully made could kill the old woman, too weak and the connection would never sever properly, and you would risk putting the old woman at risk."

"So she's asking you because she can't do it."

"So it would seem."

"But you…you didn't want to help her. Because…"

"Because I want to live a new life, Belle. One with you and Gideon, free of magic and this dreaded curse I never seem able to outrun."

She'd waited years to hear words like that, to hear him say that he didn't want his magic or his curse in his life but merely wanted to be with her and their child! But somehow hearing them now, after everything that had happened, given the current situation…it didn't feel as wonderful as she'd always dreamed it might. In fact, the very words made her feel like a dark cloud had just risen over her.

"That's quite a change to make so suddenly," she observed reaching out for a sip of wine.

Rumple followed suit across from her, but kept his eyes on his own wine glass, thinking something over in his head. She knew he was aware of her, of her eyes and her presence, watching him, expecting him to say something! But he was taking his time, thinking his way through an answer as if he was building an argument he never expected he'd have to make.

"Have you ever fallen through ice?" he questioned after a moment.

She threw her head back in surprise of the question, of the change in conversation she hadn't expected. But she knew him! This question wasn't random. There was a purpose to it, one she felt certain she'd understand if only she let him play through it.

"No. I nearly froze to death once. I ran away from home to watch some shooting stars in the meadow without my parents as a child, and it was too cold. I remember it was a bit like falling asleep."

He smiled, amused at her story but gave a small shake of his head. "Falling through ice is a bit different," he commented. "I did when I was a boy. I used to enjoy the excitement of dashing out over something that might crack and break before me, the feeling of conquering death with every step and being brave enough to do what no one else dared to do. I used to make bets with the other children who said I couldn't do it. I was smaller than they were and quick on my feet, but one day toward the spring I made the bet and began my dash, and somewhere near the center of the lake the ice…it was just gone! I went straight down into the freezing water. It was only a few seconds before I was pulled out, but...

"I remember very clearly the jolt my stomach gave when the surface beneath my foot gave way, the surprise that I felt from suddenly going down instead of forward. It all happened so fast and yet I can clearly remember thinking, understanding what had happened and how and why and then…there is a moment of shock, just when you've fallen. A moment before the pain hits when you come to your senses, and your brain learns the lesson. Then comes the pain and punishment of the cold water. It was only a few seconds, but it was enough to make me never go near the ice again."

To anyone else his story would seem random; the pointless ramblings of Rumpelstiltskin. But she could see, she could understand the hidden meaning behind what he was saying. For once one of his riddles was perfectly clear. But just to be sure…

"Are you saying that what happened with Gideon and us…that was like falling through the ice?"

"Very similar," he nodded. "I've just decided that it's not worth the temptation."

Again, that same feeling wrapped itself around her stomach. What would she have given to hear him say those words years ago?! And how had she grown to the point that they saddened her so now? Perhaps it was the way he avoided her eyes, the way his shoulders slumped forward, the way he appeared so sad and almost guilty that she couldn't bear the thought of what she was certain he was thinking. He wasn't evil! He was cursed. He could control it, but only if he tried. He'd never truly tried as long as she'd known him and that was the problem. But if he tried, then there was good he could do. He could be good to others and not just her.

"Rumple…" she reached across the table, to the place that his hand was laying and wrapped her own around it, forcing him to look up into her eyes. "People are shades of gray; you told me that. I know that you can control your magic. You've done good things with it! You just have to be willing to see it."

"What good has ever come from the Dark One's magic, Belle."

"Ariel found Eric, for one," she blurted out. She couldn't even be sure that he knew that story, but it was the first thing she'd thought about. And it wasn't the only thing. "You saved my Kingdom from ogres. And it was your strength and magic that defeated your mother and father. Not to mention the countless times you have healed me!"

They seemed like good arguments to her, but still he looked skeptical.

"Look…if you've decided that it's not worth the temptation I won't fight with you to do magic, I agree that the temptation to do great magic might have too high a cost but…I have seen your magic do good things. Terrible things too. But I've seen it do good. And I know I used to see your curse as something evil but after what happened with Gideon…my view point is just a little bit different than it was before. You control your magic Rumpelstiltskin, not the other way around. You can use it for good just as you've used it for bad."

"How would I ever know, Belle?" he whispered, his grip tightening. "In my mind, it's always a good idea that seems to grow into something terrible. How do I tell good from bad? How do I keep what happened before from happening again?"

"We talk about it. We decide together what is worth the temptation and what's not. Creating this potion to help Snow White wake an old woman trapped in a dream isn't a bad thing. Not if I'm there with you."

He was silent as he watched her for a while, their food was forgotten on the table, their hands joined on top of it, quietly gazing into one another's eyes and having a silent conversation, making an agreement without words that they both understood clearly. When the waiter came and asked if they were done and would like dessert, the answer was simple enough. They wanted something to go and the bill. Food delivered, bill paid, they exited their date early and wandered back to the shop, where he discarded both his jackets, rolled up his sleeves, and pulled out his infamous black bag. They'd done something like this once before, just after he'd returned from Neverland and David had needed a cure to the dreamshade. Then she'd sat in this back room as he worked, she'd read a book as he'd requested silence, but now things were different. She worked to assist him, like a doctor in the operating room when he needed something she became the one to measure and provide it as he created a potion before her eyes. And she was shocked to realize that unlike last time, she was capable of helping, she'd learned enough about magic that she didn't have to sit on the sidelines. They could be partners. When the potion was done he corked it inside of the bottle and they wasted no time in closing up shop and getting in the car to drive to Regina's house.

She walked up the concreate walkway by his side, her hand settled in the crook of his elbow. When Regina answered the doorbell, she seemed genuinely surprised to see the two of them standing there. She seemed even more surprised when he held up the vial they'd made and put it into her hands. She sighed when she took it, relief and ease flooded through her face as she looked at the pair of them.

"Thank you," she whispered. There were only a few more pleasantries exchanged before the door closed. No deal was ever offered for the vial, and no deal was taken. The moment the door closed and darkness shrouded them both again she could see stress fall back into him. The discomfort and shock on his face were palpable, and she reached over to touch his cheek and bring his mouth down to her own on Regina's doorstep.

"Come with me," she whispered when they broke apart.

Gideon was still at the library with Rapunzel. Their date had gone far later than planned but she didn't think Rapunzel would mind. Though the first floor of the library was dark, closed for the night, the lights were on upstairs in the apartment where Rapunzel had said she would be waiting until they returned. She was ready for them. Though Rumple was quiet, still almost in a state of shock at what happened she was happy to see Rapunzel greet them at the door with their slumbering child in her arms. She grinned like an idiot at the sight of her baby, safe and whole just as she'd left him, just as Rumpelstiltskin had promised he'd be during their time together and carefully pulled him into her arms.

"I figured you'd want to hold him when you got back," Rapunzel smiled. "He did wonderfully, just so you know. No threats from demons or monsters or witches, just good old-fashioned sleep! Is…is everything okay?"

When she glanced up at her friend after taking every last inch of her son in she found her staring at Rumpelstiltskin, who had moved at some point to look out the window and down onto the street below.

"Everything is fine," she answered, knowing exactly what had to be done next. "We'll lock up so you can go home."

"Alright…" she said uneasily, looking between her and Rumpelstiltskin, but clearly understanding she was being dismissed for some reason. "I'll see you in the morning..." Where she would expect her to tell her everything that was happening. And she would. Happily. Once sure was sure they had both taken something valuable away from tonight.

With Rapunzel safely out of the apartment, she took her son to the window his father stood by and after making eye contact and her intentions clear she settled him down in his embrace. Their boy squirmed, he stretched, and finally snuggled comfortably back against his father's chest and drifted off again with the pair of them staring down at him with looks of wonder and awe.

"You are used to making deals with magic. You give them something, and they give you something in return. What you have before you now is a different kind of deal but a deal all the same. But it's the best kind because it's an opportunity. After you give them something, they give you the opportunity to go home, to hold our son in your arms, and tell him all the good you did. You get to teach him to do it too. That's the best kind of magic there is," she whispered.

He let the words sink in as he stared down into the face of their son, letting him rest there in the space between them before he finally shifted and she glanced up just in time to return the kiss that he pressed into her lips and came away with tears in his eyes.

"I love you, Belle."

She felt herself smile as chills ran up and down her spine. She'd told him she loved him before, but not since the night he'd defeated the Black Fairy and only when they had thought they'd lost their child to the same darkness that threatened him day in and day out. Though it was only four little words she felt the heavy weight of each one as she whispered back "And I love you" and knew every last one of them were true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rumple falling through ice...I can't wait to have you all read that in Chronicles. But this is Moments, and this moment, I felt, was an important one for both of them for several reasons. In a general way, they've never really had a conversation like they have at dinner where they both say "magic is going to be in our life, let's talk about where we stand with it and how we handle it." I liked giving them the opportunity to talk about boundaries and how to operate with it rather than Belle wanting none of it and assuming Rumple knows that, while Rumple tries to hide it and assumes Belle knows that just comes with the territory. That being said, individually, there are some huge steps both are taking in this chapter. On Rumple's end, you have the acknowledgment that at its heart his magic is a tempting thing. He realizes it and understands it, he's even a little nervous about it and I thought that given the things that have happened in the past with it, those are probably good emotions to have. And then you have Belle, who is that softer side of him and was so anti-magic but is now able to say "there are good things about your magic and keeping you away from those good things isn't going to work". They come to, in my opinion, a beautiful compromise that they haven't come to before. Let's talk before we involve magic. You essentially have both of them agreeing to let Belle be the voice in his head when it comes to magic so that he can tell right from wrong.
> 
> Big thanks go to Taisch and Goldspinner for your comments on the previous chapter. I'm so happy you were thrilled with the implications of it and agree with where Belle and her father have ended up. I really like the conclusions of this chapter, but I'm a little on pins and needles as to what you are going to think. I know that Rumple and his magic is a touchy subject in the Rumbelle fandom. I thought that one of the things we saw in 7x04 was that Rumple had clearly turned over a new leaf with Belle and Gideon and this conversation seemed to me to be a good lead up to that. It is my hope that you will agree in the end. Oh, how I hope you'll agree! Well, this is it for Week Two of the Five. Up next we dive into Week Three. How are we feeling about things so far? Peace and Happy Reading!


	6. The Truth Will Out

There had certainly been a change in her husband over the last three weeks, there was no doubt about that. But the changes were subtle. They were little things that sometimes couldn't be seen. To the rest of the world, he was still Mr. Gold, owner and proprietor of the local pawn shop, The Dark One, anti-social and unpleasant to anyone on his bad side. But to her…he'd changed. The magic that had once been so prevalent in their lives was fading. It was still there, but used less. He seemed willing to help Regina and a select other few with potions or charms if they needed them, but he almost always called her over first. "To assist him", he claimed, though after a while she began to understand that he truly just didn't want to be alone with his powers. Likewise, at home, he hadn't gone near the basement since they'd gotten Gideon back. Of course, there were long hours when she was asleep at night he wandered around the first floor by himself, there were ample opportunities for him to go down there without her knowledge, but she knew he wasn't. Unlike last time, when she woke up in the night and rolled over she could always hear him downstairs, tinkering away with metal and wood, gears and cogs. Unlike last time, she could almost always see the result of this every morning; a broken clock was fixed again, a record player didn't scratch as it had before, a lamp worked perfectly with its new shade, and once, when her sewing machine had unexpectedly stopped the night before, she woke to find it working like new the next morning. He was changing, but he wasn't the only one.

Storybrooke was quiet. It was almost eerie just how quiet it was. In fact, she took it in some ways as a testament of how much Rumpelstiltskin had changed. The last time it had been this quiet, he'd been over the town line. But now he was here, with her, with the rest of the town, and problems seemed few and far between. There were the occasional problems, of course. The old woman Regina had needed the potion for was one, a young man who had begun to practice something called voodoo was another. But not long ago, Emma had apprehended a man responsible for robbing six homes night after night. They were all a little astounded to find there was no magic involved, he was just a cat burglar, selling off what didn't belong to him for money, "good old-fashioned greed" Granny had called it. Still, it made nearly everyone in town shake their heads at just how normal it was to them that it hadn't been more.

Rapunzel had changed in the course of their time away, and she was just starting to discover those new changes. She had a new hobby. Poetry. It was odd when she first noticed it, just after she'd come back from the Black Fairy's curse. While she worked in the library because she loved to read and always had a book within reach, Rapunzel worked there out of necessity. Though she knew she kept a book by her nightstand each night, she had never been one, like her, to read when work became tedious or to pass the time. And yet, when she returned from the curse, she'd never been more than arms reach from a book of poetry. She caught her reading it all day long and lately she'd caught her doing something else with it too. On three by five index cards, she'd begun to copy out the passages that she liked best. She kept a stack of them on the corner of her desk. Lately it had become so common that she kept her place in the book marked with four or five notecards and a pen so that wherever she was, if she found something she liked she could simply jot it down on the card and set it aside to be added to the stack later.

"What do you think you are going to do with all of those quotes?" she finally asked playfully the afternoon after her date with Rumple. She was in a good mood, one that seemed to reach from the top of her head all the way down to her toes. Rapunzel could tell, and had been curious that morning about how she'd gone from looking so somber the night before to so happy that morning. Of course, Rapunzel had her suspicions, and she felt herself flush with red as she insisted  _that_ wasn't the reason. She figured that after all the questioning, Rapunzel was due an interrogation of her own.

"Not sure," she answered as she finished writing and citing another one. She leaned back in her chair and read it over again. "Maybe I'll make them into a scrapbook."

"You know you don't have to write them down. You could just read them over and over again, as often as you like. They don't disappear."

"I know I just…I don't want to forget some of these lines. They're so deep and beautiful. They make me smile, and...I just want to keep them close I suppose!"

"When did you get interested in poetry anyway?"

Rapunzel smirked and put the card down so she could look over at her. "Since your husband locked me in a cabin with nothing to do but talk to Flynn or read the books he had there. Obviously, the books won out. They were all filled with poetry and I just…" she looked back at the card with adoring eyes. "I fell in love with it like I hadn't when I was a kid."

Before they could exchange another word, the baby monitor sitting between the two of them on the desk began to broadcast the sounds of her son, awake, and at this time of day probably looking for food.

"That's Gideon…I'll get him!" Rapunzel cried launching herself out of her seat and up to the apartment where they'd put a portable crib for him to spend his nap times at the library.

She sighed as she dashed away. "You know I can take care of my own son!" she called after her.

"Not on my watch!" Rapunzel called over her shoulder.

She wasn't complaining. Not yet at least, though she felt as though she was close to it. Rumple watched him throughout the night, shooing her out of the room when he woke and Rapunzel adored him to the point of wanting to be his caregiver when he was here in the library. She wasn't complaining, she knew that feeling tired and overworked was something most new mothers experienced, but she hadn't felt it because some days, like today, she felt as though she hardly spent time with her own baby. And she was beginning to-

The door to the library opened, letting in a swell of bright blinding light that she had to look away from.

"Henry…" she exclaimed, looking over the surprise visitor. "What are you doing here? I don't suppose you've come for a book?" He had a serious look about him, his backpack slung over one shoulder he had the look of a man on a mission.

"No, I came to ask you a question."

She crossed her arms over her chest, preparing for what she felt in her gut was sure to be the beginning of some emergency or other that would require she spend even less time with her son than she did now.

"Alright, ask away..."

"How do stories end?"

There was a pause as she did nothing but stare at him for a moment, expecting to hear more to it than just that. It was a strange question.

"Excuse me?"

"Stories, how are they supposed to end? The good ones, I mean," he clarified.

She felt some of the tension leave her body. After all, she didn't know what this was about, but she felt confident that if it was some strange evil attacking Storybrooke, then he'd just come right out and say it, not ask about the endings to stories. It must have been for school, some assignment he was working on. It wouldn't be the first time a student had come in and asked her an odd question for their homework. That must have been it. Apparently, it had been so quiet in Storybrooke that she was now expecting bad news.

"Well that's…that's a complicated question," she answered.

"Why?"

"Well, books don't have one uniform ending. It depends on a number of different factors. The kind of book, the sort of story, whatever the theme is or the lesson the author wants to teach…follow me." She moved around the circulation desk and among the shelves of books that she knew so well, looking at each section to find the answers that she knew Henry wanted or perhaps needed. "Romance novels…they always end with the couple finding true love, especially these paperback ones, no exceptions that I've read so far. But adventure stories…in my opinion, they usually end with the main character finding peace or contentedness, but also with a hint of something more to come, if the book has a sequel at least. Mysteries, you should be able to guess how those end, and drama books, general fiction…well, it could be anything. It just depends on the author and why they are writing the book."

Henry sighed, disappointed or frustrated at something she'd said to say the least. "Even the good ones, they all end like that?"

"Well sure…" she muttered looking him over, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind. What kind of an assignment was this? "But you know it's not the ending that makes a good book good!" she pointed out, letting herself fall back against one of the nearby tables.

"What is it then?" he asked eagerly.

"Different people have different opinions."

"What's yours?"

"Well…a good book…" she'd never had to think about it before. She knew the books she'd read in her lifetime that she considered to be "good" but they came from all different times and authors and genres. Figuring out what they all had in common…she felt a smile stretch over her face. It was easier than she thought it would be.

"A good book isn't just a good ending it's a good beginning, middle, and ending. It should be relatable, a good book will have everyone finding at least a bit of themselves in the main character. A good book doesn't make you want to get to the end, it makes you want to enjoy the journey and at the end feel like…like you've learned something, like…like you're seeing the world through a new set of eyes with a new perspective than before. You should feel like you know the entire story, not a single question left unanswered."

There were footsteps behind her, and she beamed brightly when Rapunzel rounded the corner carrying Gideon in her arms, bright-eyed and awake.

"Oh…and to my more recent experience, children's books tend to always end with the letter "z" or the number "10", without fail." She was happy to take the small bundle that was her son out of her friend's arms and stare down at him as he stared up at her, completely oblivious to the visitor that was in their presence. A visitor who was technically more than a stranger, no matter how odd it seemed.

"So that's him then…that's...that's the baby…"

"Yeah…" she smiled glancing over at Henry as she rocked Gideon. "Would you…would you like to meet your Uncle Gideon?" Henry's face went white, which was quite the accomplishment for a boy who was pale enough as it was. "Henry? Are you alright?"

"Gideon?" he questioned looking the baby over. "You mean that's actually-"

"Gideon, of course, who else would it be?" she asked with a bit of a giggle. It was the only thing she could manage in her confusion. Who else would she be holding in her arms other than her son?

But Henry didn't step closer, he merely looked at the two of them together and said "I have to go" before quickly turning on his heel and striding away, his long legs and the baby in her arms made him uncatchable, and no matter how many times she cried out after him, he wouldn't stop.

"What was that about?" Rapunzel questioned next to her.

She had no idea. And neither did Rumple as they talked about it that night in the quiet after dinner as she sat in the rocking chair lulling him to sleep for the next several hours. He agreed with her that it was odd and she asked if he'd heard anything about town that might explain the behavior, but he had no answers nor any suspicions.

"You spoke with Regina, she didn't seem shocked by Gideon's presence, did she?"

"To be honest, it never came up. Gideon wasn't around, and there was no need to mention it. Mostly we just spoke of magic; she said herself she wouldn't have bothered if she could have done it herself."

"It's odd, though, isn't it?"

"Well of course it is but without someone willing to explain we're left a bit in the dark," he agreed. "I'll see if I can't talk to someone about it tomorrow. In the meantime, it's late. I'll put him to bed so you can go to sleep."

She let out an irritated sigh. "I can put my son to sleep," she practically growled, her arms wrapping tighter around him as he slumbered. Rumple nearly jumped back at her snarl a look of confusion on his face as he looked her over.

"I know that," he responded quickly. He wasn't the only one surprised by her rashness, that was twice that day she'd felt the rising surge of anger at a loved one for caring for Gideon. It wasn't like her to do that at all, but she couldn't deny what she was feeling. She was irritated. But why…maybe she was just tired. She apologized, then rose and handed Gideon to Rumple and kissed her men, gently with one, greedily with the other and excused herself to bed.

In the dark of the night and through the next day she didn't think much of Henry's visit, she was far more focused on why it suddenly bothered her so that every time Gideon began to cry upstairs Rapunzel was the one that had to get him from his crib, to feed him, to change him. She understood that Rapunzel was just as in love with her son as she was, but still…it bothered her more than it should have. So much so that she packed him up a little early that afternoon under the guise of taking him to the grocery store just to spend a bit of time with him alone. Rapunzel offered once more to watch him, but she insisted he go with her and the pair of them ventured across the street to inform Rumple of their plan only to walk in on Rumple standing in the back with none other than Henry and Emma. All three eyes were suddenly on the pair of them, framed in the doorway as she stared back at them shocked.

"Henry, Emma? What's going on?"

"I was just about to call you," Rumple muttered before Emma rounded the corner of the table.

"That's Gideon? That's your son?" she pressed.

The answer to that seemed obvious, but she'd said it with such a tone of seriousness she felt her blood begin to race. She didn't know what was going on. She didn't know why they were here or asking about Gideon. Did they mean to take him from her now, or punish him for what happened with the Black Fairy? They wouldn't, not now that he was a baby! But she found herself looking over at Rumple. She would run from them if there was a problem, one word would have her out the door racing away from the pair of them to protect her son. But Rumple stared back at her gently.

"It's alright, Belle," he assured her, knowing, somehow what she needed to hear. Well…if it was alright then…

"Of course it's Gideon," she answered looking back at Emma. "Who else would it be?"

"We thought he'd died," she explained. "The night of the Final Battle, after he killed me, or failed to, he just disappeared, and we thought he had died when I didn't."

"No! Of course not, he's a baby again!" she blurted out. Three weeks later and they were only just now coming to them with this? "We've been to Granny's with him. We've been running around Storybrooke with a newborn ever since the battle!" They had to have heard they had a baby by now? Who did they think they'd been toting all around the town?

"There were children, newborns, found all around Storybrooke for days after the curse was lifted. All of the parents came forward to claim some of the babies were taken care of, but most were abandoned without any family looking for them," Emma explained. "We thought Gideon had died and you were in mourning, when we heard you had another baby…we thought maybe you might have-"

"What? Replaced him with another child? One that we just found?!" she shrieked tears coming to her eyes, tears of anger and sorrow and confusion, so many emotions she hadn't even known she'd felt toward Emma because the more she spoke, the worse it seemed to get! She hadn't heard from Emma or Snow or David in weeks! Regina was all they had seen last week, they thought they'd been grieving the loss of their son, and no one had said anything? They thought they had kidnapped another child and replaced their own flesh and blood that easily and no one had even called to ask them about it until now?!

"Most of these newborns don't have any identifiable family we figured you were just doing what came naturally for one you found! And since all the parents who were missing a child were discovered-"

"You figured he was a stray and didn't have a home so we took him in like a dog or a cat?! We could never do that. But as you can see he's perfectly fine now, the same child I gave birth to. He's mine! He said that when the Black Fairy's curse was lifted all her dark magic would be too and it worked. He returned to us as a baby again. He's innocent now."

"They're not here to hurt him, Belle," Rumple assured her moving around Emma and stepping forward so that he could put an arm around her waist. His touch eased the anger she felt so that the entire room wasn't shrouded in red anymore. They weren't here to harm him. But that didn't explain why people she'd once considered to be friends would wait weeks to have this conversation especially given what they thought had happened. And she still wasn't sure why they were even here now.

"Then why are you here?"

"You gave me the idea," Henry spoke up from behind Emma. On the other side of the table, she could see him standing over a book. One that she had seen before because he'd showed it to her in this very room. It was the infamous Storybook. "The author said that the Final Battle would be the final chapter of the book. But I've been trying to write the ending for weeks, and every time I think I'm done and write 'the end'…"

She watched as he took the pen in his hand and wrote the words out so that they appeared magically on the paper. Then, with a flash of light, the words vanished. She stared at the place the words had been in astonishment. Of course, she knew Henry had power, that he was "The Author", it was a discovery that had been made just before they'd all gone to Camelot. They'd had plenty of time in Camelot to go over the details of it when they'd been in the woods hiding from King Arthur and his cronies, but the pen...as far as she'd been aware Henry had destroyed the pen. How or where he'd gotten it back was a mystery to her, but that she saw it, and saw what he could do with it...slowly, things were beginning to fall into place.

"This is why you asked me about how books ended yesterday."

"Yes, and after we talked and I saw Gideon I realized that I couldn't finish the book because I didn't have the end of the story, not all of it. I was missing a piece of it, Gideon. A good book helps you see things from a different perspective, right?"

"Right."

"Well, that's what I'm here for, the end of the story."

They talked for hours. Beyond the hour it turned dark and well past dinner time. They told him everything they could think of, every bit of information that they had about the Black Fairy, how they'd searched for Gideon, what their research had told them. Rumple even told them in the end about what they had seen in the dream and then the vision his mother had given him, about how his mother had cut him off from his destiny and how he hadn't been able to defeat her at first, falling for a lie because it had sounded pretty. He told them how he'd come to destroy her on his own afterward. They told him about her life under the curse, about how she'd found him and most importantly of all what happened in the caverns.

She had to admit, the more they talked the less she blamed Emma. It reminded her that there was one other thing books could sometimes be: therapeutic. Henry was meticulous, he wrote down everything and with an artistic flair. He wanted every last detail, what they were wearing, the color of the walls in her house, the temperature inside the cave, and he wove their story together making comments and filling them in on what they had missed. In fairness, she found that Emma and her family were not the only ones guilty of not coming to see her, they were guilty too. They'd had three weeks and hadn't gone to see them, hadn't checked to make sure things were okay or assisted with anything beyond Regina's one request. They hadn't even gone into town to check if Emma had been alive that night, even after they'd thought she was dead at Gideon's hand. In hearing the tale again, she'd forgotten just how bad it had been for not just her and Rumple, but all of them. Henry wrote on. It all seemed too much but on and on he wrote, until the story was over.

"'Rumpelstiltskin and Belle reached into the basket and pulled forth none other than their infant son. In the wake of the Black Fairy's Curse all her magic had been reversed and he was once more as small and innocent as any newborn. They smiled as they held him between them and knew that the battle was finally over. The end.'"

Only it wasn't. They all watched once more as the words "the end" evaporated off the page.

"I don't understand!" Henry proclaimed. "I wrote it all down, but something is still missing. What is it?" he looked up at her, desperate for answers that she could not give. She loved books but she never wrote them, and even she couldn't understand this magic that he had.

"I'm sorry Henry, you're the writer, I can't help you."

"Emma squeezed his arm and patted his back. "You'll just have to discover it on your own, kid. But you know, your Uncle Neal makes that exact same noise when he needs to be fed."

It was true, Gideon was beginning to squirm in the bassinet Rumple had fixed and set up for him in the shop. He'd laid there asleep through most of his own tale, but over the last few minutes he had begun to grow restless. It would be time to feed him again very soon, and she was happy to see Henry take the hint and pack up his things to go, promising them that he was going to figure it out and would let them know when he did. She picked Gideon up and held him in her arms to settle him as best she could so they could get home to feed him, but it was her own stomach that was churning as she watched the pair leave.

"Rumple…you don't suppose that Henry can't finish the book because-"

"No…" he insisted right away. "My mother is gone, and there is nothing more to come. Gideon is safe, Belle. I'm sure Henry is just missing one last element."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it doesn't seem like much, but this chapter is actually really pivotal in a number of ways. Most of them we are going to get to in later chapters. I don't want to spoil too much of it, but it is safe to say that one purpose of this chapter really set up the Snow/Belle theme that is going to be coming up. It really takes a look at how the city has been operating since the curse was lifted and fills you in on what the Charming clan has been doing. In fairness, they had their hands full, at least in this version. I was very careful to write this chapter as well as a couple of the others in MX&U. If Gideon comes back to them as a baby because all of the Black Fairy's magic has been undone, then it is safe to assume that all the other children she kept in that realm would have to return to. That means lots of random babies everywhere and placing them and figuring out who they were would have taken a lot of time. Then you add the old woman into it...they've been busy. And I know it seems far-fetched, really I do, that Emma would think Gideon had died and then think they just adopted another kid and are going to let it go because they don't think the kid has any other parents, but really, when I looked at it from Emma's perspective it wasn't that crazy. Last she saw Gideon he was murdering her and she shouldn't have lived. Next thing she knows she's alive and Gideon is gone. Would you think "oh I guess he's a baby again, cool!" or would you think "I defeated evil and he's dead". With that comes a lot of guilt, so I imagine that when they think they've got one of these babies instead of wanting to go to the house and say "sorry I killed your son I have to take this one from you now too" they might be willing to let it pass for a while. It's confusing now, I get it. But trust me in the next few chapters, especially, a lot of what happened in this chapter is going to have greater meaning!
> 
> Thank you LovelyClaire and Goldspinner for your comments on the last chapter! I'm so glad that you liked that. Trust me, whether you like this chapter or aren't crazy about it I know that you are going to love the next one. It's another Rumbelle focused chapter and they're taking another big step along their journey in their return to intimacy. Onward we go, until then, Peace and Happy Reading!


	7. Family's First Steps

It amazed her just how quickly things could go from perfect and natural right back to awkward in the blink of an eye.

Gideon was one month old! It was difficult to imagine that it had been one month since the unfortunate circumstances that brought Gideon into this world early, but the date had been marked on the calendar in red pen ever since she'd gotten him back. He was one month old, but it had been only been about three weeks since he'd been a baby again. Still, it had been marked on the calendar because they'd both agreed that on the day he turned one-month old there was something that needed to be done. And so, on the afternoon he turned one month old, they took him to the doctor. It wasn't something that she was particularly eager to do, given her history, but the knowledge that she was going to see Jackie and that it was the right thing to do for her son gave her the courage to walk into that dreadful place with him. Of course, the fact that Rumple went with her and kept a hand on her at all times didn't hurt either.

His check-up went well. Jackie was happy to see her again and eager to hear the story of how things had happened since she'd seen her just after the delivery and Gideon had gone away. Jackie expressed concern that Gideon was small for a month-old baby, but she wasn't terribly surprised since she and Rumple both acknowledged that he would optimistically only have the growth of a three week old. Jackie agreed. It was something worth keeping an eye on, but not something worth worrying about and after Gideon received the first of his vaccinations they left the doctor with smiles and praises for all their tiny bundle had endured and accomplished in one month, and all that they had accomplished in that time as well.

They picked up burgers and a couple of pieces of celebratory chocolate cake at Granny's before taking Gideon home for the evening. They put him to bed together but had ended up back downstairs, eating their cake and talking amiably. They both smiled as they expressed little guilt that it was their son's one-month birthday and they were enjoying cake not only without him but that he wouldn't be able to indulge in it himself for a while. She told him about that day in the library, he told a joke that had her laughing. All was well until they heard Gideon's cries upstairs.

"I can get him," she commented with a stretch. "I'm feeling tired anyway. May as well put him back to sleep before I go to bed."

He nodded. "Why don't you go off to bed then, I can get him back to sleep and see you in the morning." She'd been about to argue with him that she was more than capable of putting her son to sleep, but his final words caught her off guard. And for the first time in a long while, certainly since they'd all been living in this house together again, she found herself wondering "why?" Why did she have to wait all night until morning to see him? Why were they living together and yet separately still after all this time? How much slower were they going to take this? Their night up until Gideon had cried had been wonderful and natural and easy but parting ways...it felt awkward. How could it all change so fast?

Those questions were still in her mind when she finally crawled into bed and sat up by herself, tossing and turning restlessly, aware for the first time since she'd been back just how big the bed was for one person.

She hadn't really been comfortably sleeping, but she hadn't been fully awake either when she turned over again and realized that she was completely awake. It was still dark, she'd been asleep no more than a few hours, but there was only a second or so of pondering before the reason for her waking became clear. Gideon was awake again.

Though waking from sleep early and often was never her idea of fun two months ago, now it was the only sound that could get her out of bed as fast as the lightning. She quickly lifted herself off the bed, found a robe in the bathroom and left the room saying simply "I'm on my way" hopefully loud enough that her baby would hear and feel-

She was too late. As always. Down the hall there was already someone in his room, holding him secure against his shoulder as he cried. It was Rumpelstiltskin. Dressed only in socks, pants, and a shirt without a tie he was bouncing up and down, rubbing their son's back in the dark with only the light of the rose to illuminate them. It would have been a perfect moment to lean against the door jam and just watch the pair of them together…

But Gideon was crying, and while she could have watched them forever, her only instinct was to silence his tears. She let herself into the room and put her hands on her boy's back, making her husband well aware she was there too.

"I can get him, you know," she commented looking him over.

"You were sleeping," Rumpelstiltskin muttered simply. "And I suspect he's just hungry, something easily taken care of."

She glanced at the clock and agreed. It was about that time for him to eat again. "I'll go get his bottle," she whispered uselessly against Gideon's screams.

"No, that's alright, I'll get it," Rumpelstiltskin volunteered quickly. "You can go back to bed."

"It's okay. I can get it."

"No, I don't mind. I'll feed him and get him back to bed. You can go back to sleep." She stared at the two of them there for a moment. Shocked and a bit irritated, she'd been feeling those emotions more and more in the last week. She really didn't mind staying up to-

"Say good-night to mama," he finally whispered turning his shoulder so Gideon was closer to her, not that he would know, his eyes were screwed up as he cried and she was sure that he would remain so until he had something to eat. With the resignation that he wanted to take care of the baby alone, and that fighting with him now would only hinder comforting their son, she reached out and kissed her son on the top of his head.

"Good-night my little hero," she whispered over his cries. She was nearly out of the room before she turned around and looked at the pair of them. "Are you sure you don't want me to-"

"It's fine Belle. Go back to sleep."

She looked between the two of them and shook her head as she went back to bed surprised by how sad the thought of going back to sleep made her. This was getting a little ridiculous. Their schedule for Gideon seemed set, and while she'd been happy with it a few weeks ago, she was growing more and more eager to change the way things were. He took care of Gideon throughout the night, leaving her to their bedroom, alone, and only coming in when the sun had barely risen to shower and change before she was out of bed. Rumple took care of Gideon while she prepared for work in the morning and they bounced him back and forth between them as they ate. He did spend most of his day in the library with her, but the problem was that he spent so much time sleeping up in the apartment, away from the noise she felt as though she hardly saw him. And even when he was awake, Rapunzel had a tendency to keep him to herself. In truth, she spent more uninterrupted time with Rapunzel these days than Gideon. And she was beginning to feel like she hadn't really seen her husband since he'd insisted they go on a date days ago. She knew, they spent an hour or so together at night, after dinner, after the put Gideon in his crib to sleep. They talked about little things, but it seemed all too soon that just like tonight Gideon cried, they put him back to bed and then went through their schedule all over again.

Why did he have to take on so much all on his own? And why was she waiting night after night for morning to come and see him if only for a few hours each night? It wasn't that she didn't mind Rumple and Gideon bonding, but she disliked the fact that they were becoming so compartmentalized with their son. It made her feel like there was more co-parenting going on than mutual parenting. And as to what he was doing each night…each morning she noticed that a different object that had been broken or taken apart the night before was whole and in proper working order. She was sleeping and he was up working and taking care of their son. He'd told her time and time again that he didn't need the rest, but she wasn't so quick to believe something like that so easily. There had been a time, a long while ago when they both had looked forward to getting rest and sleeping, together, in the same bed. He'd told her it helped to silence the voices in his head and she could see all too easily how something like sleeping could be good for him, good for them. But night after night he was up with Gideon and working downstairs. It was beginning to bother her.

She did try to go to bed. In all fairness, she did get back under the covers and lay her head on the pillow, but her mind was drawn to the sounds that she heard outside her bedroom door. The noise of her son's cries grew louder until they grew distant and there was a creek on the stairs. In her mind's eye, she could see them coming out of the nursery and going downstairs. She followed them from her spot there on the bed. She listened to his footsteps, the familiar groans and moans of the old house that betrayed their position and the crying as they settled downstairs in the kitchen. She heard the microwave beep and then a minute or two later the cries came back up the stairs and into the nursery. Slowly his wails subsided, and she imagined he was sitting in the rocking chair they always used to feed him, the squeak the old piece of furniture gave when anyone leaned forward on it gave them away. She waited a few more minutes and once again heard the squeak of the floorboards.

Gideon had stopped crying, and though she was almost never the one to take care of him at night, she knew his routine well enough to know that Gideon hardly ever cried after he finally got what he needed. He'd fed him and probably rocked him back to sleep easily enough. Those were Rumple's footsteps now, shutting Gideon's door from outside noises, approaching their own door…he passed her bedroom and she let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding as she heard him turn and go back downstairs.

Why did this bother her so much? Why did the sound of his footsteps on the stairs make her stomach turn into knots? Why did the knowledge that he was downstairs tinkering with something or other keep her up? Nothing about this was natural, nothing about it was normal. When they'd brought Gideon home, and he'd left her to sleep alone the first night, she'd told herself it was a good thing and that she wanted to move slowly with him. But this, week after week, night after night alone in this room, his side of the bed perfectly made while she slept in hers each night was beginning to grind her down. It was too slow.

With a sigh she sat up in bed, intending to get up, but never actually made it to her feet. She knew what would make this better. She knew what she needed to do to fix the problem. But did she want to? They were making changes and improvements every day, but doing things like this always gave her pause before she remembered. It wasn't exactly has it had been before. Somethings had changed and some hadn't, but for once he was determined to put his family first and that made all the difference in the world. Except when it came to the two of them. If she'd said she wanted to go slowly, he'd go so slowly it burned. He would never be the one to make the first move, not when he touched her, not when he kissed her, and he was far too respectable to ever assume she wanted him back without hearing the words come out of her mouth first…probably more than once.

She finally pushed herself up off the bed and grabbed the robe once more before leaving the room slowly, so the noise wouldn't startle Gideon and wake him again, then went downstairs. Rumple was there, sitting at the little round table by the fireplace, putting together a clock under a bright light. It was the only light in the room.

"Don't you sleep anymore?" she questioned resting her hip against the table as she looked down at him.

"I never needed to sleep," he answered quietly, not taking his eyes off the piece he was tinkering with using tweezers. He'd been well aware that she was there and awake, he was just so determined it seemed to make the pieces of this puzzle fit together he wasn't easily distracted.

"But you used to," she mentioned.

"Only with you..." he muttered absent-mindedly before finally getting the cog he was working on perfectly in place. Only then did he set it and his tools aside so he could look up at her like he was registering her presence there for the first time. "I thought you were going back to bed."

She sighed and shook her head. "You sent me to bed but…I can't get my mind to stop thinking."

"Is something wrong?" he questioned with genuine curiosity and worry. Probably for Gideon. While there were only about a hundred people in Storybrooke who could threaten the family that they were forming, none had come forward yet. But, as she had with Henry, that only made her paranoia grow, and it would be the same for him. Naturally, he would assume that something was wrong with Gideon and never even imagine what it was that truly bothered her at the moment. She hadn't even wanted to consider it until this night.

"Everything is fine, I'm just thinking…about you…down here alone…every night."

"I don't need to sleep, Belle," he insisted turning back to his project and picking up more tools.

"But you used to," she repeated sternly. "You slept by my side every night when we were together."

"Only with you," he replied once more. "Since I became the Dark One, you are the only one I've ever been able to sleep peacefully around. You are the only one the voices ever quieted themselves with. Otherwise, I'm up all night with…nightmares and gears and wheels and cogs…"

There it was. His frustration had begun to grow seemingly from out of nowhere and she watched as he tossed away the tools he was working with and rubbed his face, looking over the mess he'd created before him. He didn't need sleep, but he was tired. She knew he was. Dark One or not, the human inside of him needed the rest. He needed to lay down each night and silence the voices in his head and find peace. He wasn't going to do that down here alone. Perhaps, that was one of the reasons that he was so eager to look after their son each night. It was something to do that wasn't being by himself.

"Don't forget looking after Gideon," she reminded him. At those words, the frustration that had emerged on his face melted away as quickly as it had formed. The thought of there son had him smirking with a twinkle in his eye. He nodded gently.

"That I do happily."

It was the smirk that did her in. It was the way he cared for their son. It was the way that he was still the Dark One, but when he was around his family his face lit up with so much light, she couldn't see a hint of darkness inside of him anymore. She'd felt more than ever this past week that they were taking their first steps together in ways they hadn't before. This would be just one more.

With more confidence than she knew she'd ever had, she found herself stepping forward and kneeling down by his side so she could grasp the hand on his knee.

"Come to bed? Please?" she requested quietly. No more tinkering, no more thinking, no more desperation for one solid hour with her husband after the baby went to sleep. They could have the night again. Even if they just slept through it.

She felt certain about this step, but she could see his thoughts play out in front of his eyes at her request. Excitement. Confusion. Panic. He hadn't had so many emotions since she first took him to bed the night the first curse broke! But his stunned silence made her smile. She wasn't about to sleep with him like that, not yet, but she was happy enough, for the first time since they'd conceived their son, to simply spend the night with him again, to give him the peace they both knew he needed.

Smiling, she reached up to touch his cheek and drew his lips to her own, one delicate and chaste kiss. He returned the gentle kiss, and she felt his hand weave itself into her hair. She was still smiling when she pulled away and squeezed his hand.

"Come to bed, Rumpelstiltskin," she whispered once more, before rising to her feet and holding out her hand for him to take.

He had no choice in the matter. He obeyed her call and together they both walked carefully hand in hand up the stairs and back into their room. She closed the door behind them and for the first time since she could remember she got into bed as Rumpelstiltskin moved about the bathroom and the bedroom in the dark. He found pajamas, still sitting in the same drawer but untouched since the curse and probably long before that. After he was changed, he pulled his side of the blankets back and then slid into the bed beside her. Without ever having to think about it, like she was back in time years ago before curses and Gideon and pirates, she moved to rest beside him. She let her head lay against his shoulder and draped her arm over his waist. He wrapped his arm around her back, just as he always had, but she felt his fingers tap restlessly on her shoulder blade. There was just one thing missing. And they both knew it.

"Would you mind if I…"

"I think it would be awkward if you didn't," she answered quickly, already feeling the itch of the motion he desperately wanted to make. His fingers were already on her back, but with her permission, they moved once more, first in simple circles on her shoulder, then long familiar strokes up and down her spine. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh at the feeling of being completely relaxed once more. And together they drifted off into peaceful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go. Another pretty big step three weeks in. I did warn you at the beginning of this that I was going to take them so slow it would burn. But I kind of like it. I like how this is different than the past where they didn't take their time and those hasty actions led to, in my opinion, a relationship that didn't have room to breathe. This has room to breathe and develop. It's not like last time when they had a million things to talk about but slept together anyway and then feelings were hurt because they didn't talk about those things before they slept together. Now they are freaking having chocolate cake as they talk about their day downstairs. Now there is time for those million conversations and more.
> 
> Thank you, Taisch and Goldspinner, for your comments on the last chapter. I do hope you like this one. I hope you'll like how everything is getting set up perfectly for some of the main events in the chapters to come. We're getting down to the wire with this and I hope you are enjoying every second of this fiction. After all we've endured as a fandom, I feel like we deserve it! Peace and Happy Reading!


	8. Sharing the Load

They were sleeping together again. Not in the way husbands and wives would have normally considered it "sharing a bed", not yet. To them, it was simply an act of going to sleep every night. But she was surprised to find that the difference that little change made was significant. When they didn't go their separate ways at night they had a more time to spend together, more time to talk. Mostly about Gideon, but as they prepared for bed each night, other conversations began to seep into their discussions slowly. They began to make grocery lists together again, he told her stories of his past, and she caught him up on what was going on with Rapunzel. The tone of their voices began to change, from common cadences they used with everyone to hushed, quiet discussion they reserved for one another. Intimacy was never something that she had thought they had a problem with, it was something that she always thought they just had, but after a few nights and mornings by his side, she was beginning to notice how much closer she felt to him again. Somewhere in the midst of all the craziness and lies and cruelty they had lost their bond of intimacy and hadn't noticed it until it came back. They found it in the moment he helped her put a necklace on, just because, and let his touch linger against her shoulders and neck. It was present in the moment they'd both begun discussing the possibility of going out of town and in his excitement, he'd reached out and squeezed her knee. It was there when he woke her with a kiss on the head and told her it was time to get up. It was in small moments that she felt they were truly returning to one another and the gap between where they'd once been and what they'd created was growing smaller.

A lot changed when they started sharing a bed again, but there was something in the following days that did not change. Gideon. Out of curiosity, she'd finally looked up how long it would take a baby to sleep through the night. It could be months! Six months before he slept through the night! And the only downside she saw with sleeping with her husband was that she finally saw just how often Gideon got up in the night. Laying on his chest night after night meant that every time Gideon woke, he had to shake her, more than gently so she woke quickly, and mutter that Gideon was awake. The first night she had almost rejoiced when he'd done it, and thought that it was the change she'd needed, but soon enough the same old predictable conversation followed.

"I can get him."

"It's alright, go back to bed, Belle, I'll get him back to sleep."

"Are you sure? I can-"

"It's okay. I'll be back soon enough."

She was getting frustrated. With him, with Rapunzel, with herself. Was it too much to ask for some private time with her own child? To sit with him in the middle of the night and soothe his tears? To change and feed him without Rumple? To put him down for his nap and sing him a lullaby instead of Rapunzel? These past few weeks had been heavenly. Her best friend was back in her life, strife was almost non-existent in Storybrooke, her husband was nearly her husband again, but when it came to her son, there were times she felt like no more than a glorified babysitter.

Still, "frustrated" didn't erupt into something more until a few days later, when Gideon woke up for the third time in the early hours of the morning.

"I'll go," she insisted after listening to Rumple sigh.

"No, that's alright, I can get him."

Perhaps it was how tired she already was from the other two times he'd climbed out of bed after they'd had this exchange or the fact that it was so early in the morning, but as he moved the blankets aside to climb out, she felt her irritation reach its boiling point. With more energy than she thought she had she scrambled out of bed before he could.

"I said I'd get him! I can take care of my own son!" she exclaimed before tugging her robe off its hook so forcefully she nearly broke the thing and striding out of the room, leaving Rumple sitting on the bed in stunned silence. Even she had to admit that she closed their bedroom door a little too hard, but in the hope that he'd take that as a hint that she didn't want him to show up and get the bottle, or the diaper, or anything to help whatever was ailing their baby. She was perfectly capable of doing it on her own.

She did take a brief moment, before stepping into his room to rub her face, to collect her thoughts and sigh out the frustration she felt. She was angry at nearly everyone who stepped up to care for Gideon in the last few weeks, but she wasn't angry at her son. He needed her, and she needed him far more than anyone else, she believed that!

Inside the room, Gideon had lit the bell jar with thoughts of his parents. In the last few days she'd noticed that it had begun to transform itself into a perfectly healthy looking rose again. Not only did she smile every time she looked at it now, but it's warm glow, as it turned out, had been the perfect substitute for a night light for Gideon. It was bright enough to see by, but gentle enough not to wake them any further. She'd appreciated it up until now, when suddenly her own thoughts began to drive her mad with curiosity. The flower was bewitched to turn up when he thought of either one of them, but she'd never know which. Rumple had been taking care of him at night for weeks, did he imagine Rumple coming to get him? Would he be disappointed if it was her?

"Hey, little man," he continued to scream as she reached into his crib and pulled him into her arms. Not wet. Hungry…possibly. Rumple had taken him the other two times and knew his nighttime schedule better than her. Had he fed him when he'd come in here a couple of hours ago? Maybe. She couldn't remember if she'd heard footsteps on the stairs last time like she had the first. But logic took over. Gideon was a good sleeper, she knew that, he didn't cry beyond what he needed so if he wasn't wet and wasn't tired, hungry was the only other option.

She made her way through the house passing the door to their room which was still closed, down the steps, into the kitchen where they kept the formula. In truth, she resented the formula more than she ever thought she would, especially over these last few weeks. She knew that it had been essential and important for the Fairies to heal her after she'd given birth for many reasons, but it hadn't escaped her notice that women who breastfed seemed to have time with their babies built in because of it. Drinking formula and using bottles was great, but it allowed everyone the opportunity to do what she looked around and saw only mothers doing for their children. It was a bonding experience. She'd read that in a book on parenting not long ago and wondered what she'd had time to bond with Gideon over. She couldn't feed him, no one ever seemed to let her even change him on her own, everyone wanted to help. She knew that there were mother's who would probably give their right arms to have the kind of assistance she had with Gideon. But there were many times that she'd give her right arm not to have it, to have her breasts swell with nourishment, to have to wake every night because no one else could give him what she could.

"There now." Up in Gideon's room once more she sat in the rocking chair and cradled him properly in her arms, trying not to cry when she realized that it had been at least a week since she'd fed him herself. He latched on to the nipple and began his suckling, all the while looking up at her with big blue, tear stained eyes. "These will be brown when you're older. The same color as your father's and your brother's."

In her mind, she thought that it might have been good his eyes hadn't changed color yet, if they had she might see the older version of him, and it would be strange. His eyes gazed up at her now, giving her and her alone his undivided attention, attention that she had craved to both give and receive over the last couple of weeks. He stared with curiosity and wonder and sometimes he even seemed to know what she was saying. It was odd, remembering how less than a month ago she'd had him in this house, a grown man curious about things like pianos and his family. She wondered if he had those memories; if that knowledge was somehow still in him. She shuttered to think it was. Though that one day she'd had him had been wonderful for her, what he'd had to go through in his life to get to that one day hadn't been worth it. She'd rather have these precious moments alone with him to undo all of that, to let him learn it all anew.

"Do you know about your brother? Has your father told you about him yet?" she murmured. "Sometimes it makes him very sad to think about it. Sometimes it makes me very sad to think about it, but your brother is how your father knows how to take such good care of you. You see, once upon a time, there was a boy, who had never been able to rely on anyone in his life. Not his father, not his mother, not even his wife when he grew up. That boy was your father. And when he grew up he had a son, a son that he loved deeply named Baelfire…"

Gideon listened as he ate, or at least she assumed he did, his eyes stayed focused on her the entire time as she told stories that Bae had once told her about growing up with his father. She decided to tell him only the good ones. Someday he'd learn the terrible knowledge of what his father and brother, what all his family had gone through, but he was only a month old and already had enough sadness in his life. And so had her husband.

Feeding him, dancing around with him after as she burped him was satisfying. She was tired and spent, but deeply satisfied. Every moment of it she felt her own mind slowly return to her and grew more and more conscious of how she'd left Rumple, of how she'd shouted at him. She didn't regret it, not this time that she'd finally had with her child to tell him stories and make sure he was satisfied, but she was certain that there was another way it could have been handled. In fact, there was a way it should have been handled before that night, which probably would have been easier on them both. After Gideon fell asleep again, after the light from the rose died, and she had taken the bottle downstairs to be washed out and was conscious of the fact that the morning sky was turning from black to deep purple she returned to their room.

She opened the door quietly but knew even before she saw his form turned away from her that he wasn't sleeping. She hung her robe back on its hook, discarded her slippers and slipped back in between the sheets so she could put a hand on his back. He rolled over instantly at her beckoning, perhaps expecting her to curl back into him as always, but instead, he shifted to his other side when he realized that she wasn't going to. They lay there face to face, the purple sky turning to blue outside the windows, tired, but unwilling to dismiss the problem they'd encountered.

"We need to talk," she finally whispered.

"I assumed," he answered quietly. "You could have told me if you needed time with him."

There was a beat of silence as she stared at him on the other side of the pillow. Blue or brown, their son had his eyes. Full of attention and knowing. The same look staring back at her now was precisely the look her son had given her as she'd fed him. She wondered what her own gaze betrayed in her eyes, if he noticed how many different things in that one sentence had struck her like a knife.

"I have been telling you," she whispered. "Every night for weeks I've told you I could get him and every time you've insisted."

"I figured that since you had him during the day, it would be a nice change, and since I don't need the sleep like you do, it was only logical to me."

She smiled and buried her face in the pillow to keep from laughing. The topic he'd brought up had seemed so obvious to her in these past few days she was surprised he hadn't noticed it himself.

"You do need sleep," she insisted as he stared at her confused. "Maybe you don't need it like everyone else, Rumpelstiltskin, but these last few days…haven't you noticed the mood you've been in? The way your shoulders have carried less weight on them than when you were spending night after night downstairs?" As if to prove a point she reached out and touched his shoulder and upper arm, feeling just how much softer they seemed to her since he'd started sleeping once more.

"I suppose I haven't," he whispered back, taking her hand from his shoulder and tangling their fingers together in the space between their bodies.

"Well, I have. You aren't as invincible as you think. And honestly…I don't get to do much with Gideon during the day," she admitted sadly, getting back to their original conversation. "Everybody loves him, Rumple. Rapunzel jumps up to take care of him at the library before I can ask, Granny snatches him out of our arms the second we enter the diner, you've been taking care of him at night...the only time I've had to be alone with him is when I take him to the grocery store. And even then, he sleeps!"

He nodded. "They say it takes a village."

"I know, and I agree, but a child needs his parents too, not just the village. You should know that more than anyone. And I want to be his mother, Rumple. I want to have memories of late nights and singing him to sleep. I want to feel like we are raising our son, not like one of us is a primary parent, and the other is secondary."

"You aren't secondary," he insisted, squeezing her hand tight between them. "You can't be, you gave birth to him."

"I carried him for less than a month, Rumple. One month of one problem right after another! And I don't know if that changed things between us-"

"It hasn't," he interrupted. "It hasn't changed anything, he sees you just as he would if you were still pregnant with him."

"Does he?"

He nodded slowly, then reached out and wrapped his hand around her waist and back, giving her a slight tug forward. She hadn't realized how upset she was until her head was buried in his chest and she was clinging to him for the comfort she was desperate for. He was assuring, but she just couldn't tell if it was enough, and she knew that until Gideon was grown and could talk for himself, until they saw the young man they'd once known and how he'd grown under their parentage, she wouldn't know.

"I want to be as good a mother to him as you are a father," she whispered.

She had been hoping for something, anything to comfort and reassure herself but instead, she felt his muscles tense, and the breath in his lungs escape seconds later. Something she'd said? She pulled her head out of his chest so she could see his face and was met with a look of shock and dismay.

"What?" she wondered aloud, letting her hands drift up to his cheek.

"I'm…I'm not used to being the one who comparable."

It took her a moment to digest what he'd said, and to figure out exactly what was bothering him, but once she had, she found herself smiling. He was just like a child who had never been given a compliment before. He wasn't used to being the star, the "good one", the one that was looked up to and admired. Even though she'd felt all that for him before, known he was good and admired him for how he had loved her so unashamedly and respectfully all at once…he'd never believed it.

"You are," she whispered. "You are such a good father sometimes it is intimidating. You get him to sleep every night in minutes, half the time it takes me!"

"I had a head start."

"That's part of it. But the other part is that you are a good father who loves your son. Gideon isn't Neal, you have good instincts, and I want to be like you."

"Oh, Belle…" It was his turn now, to reach out and push fallen hair over her ear and move his thumb over her cheek as he cupped her jaw. "You are a good mother. I don't know how to help you see what I see when you hold him, when I look at the two of you together and how you've managed every obstacle that has come your way."

"I just need time with him, Rumple, here, alone! I need us to share parenting, to take turns, and feel like we're truly in this together."

"We are."

She smiled, suddenly reminded of another conversation about trust and love they'd had over a month ago. "I hear you here," she whispered, pointed to her head before moving to point at her chest, just as he had once done. "But I need to feel that here."

After a small pause, he finally nodded. "We'll work on it."

They fell asleep like that, not in one another's arms but holding onto one another in the earliest hours of the morning. Their heads bowed, resting against one another, desperate for the knowledge and visions the other held in their mind's eye. It was only much later, well after they both should have been awake, that Gideon woke them both and they realized just how late they were for work.

"I have to get a shower…" he muttered as they looked back at one another. "Can you take care of Gideon?"

She smiled and quickly closed the distance between them to kiss his mouth. "Happily."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True story...this chapter is based on true events. A few years back I mentored a young girl at work. She and her boyfriend had just had a baby and being young as they were, they both were working some pretty odd jobs. To save money, our bosses let her bring the baby to work and while she was there all of us were super eager to look after him for her because we assumed that she was doing it in the night. She was a super shy girl, very soft-spoken, nothing ever seemed to bother her, which was why we were stunned when she came to work crying one morning that she and her boyfriend had a massive fight. They were the kind of couple that made you believe true love was real, so it was stunning, and through the day we were able to pry the information out of her that the fight was because he wasn't letting her take care of the baby at night. While we assumed she was doing it at night, he assumed she was doing more than her fair share during the day, and she hadn't been able to care for him enough and felt incompetent. There was a medical reason she wasn't able to breastfeed, and it only contributed to the feeling that she was incompetent, which of course it wasn't. She just had to speak up for herself a little more. And she did, and after that, she realized breastfeeding versus formula didn't matter she just needed to make time for herself and baby. But now that is the reason I always ask before I just assume someone wants help with their kid. You never really know. Anyway, back then OUAT was in its third season, and I remember thinking even then that this would totally be a problem Rumbelle would have when they had a kid. In my mind, Granny would want him all day and Rumple all night...imagine my joy and delight when the fairies healed her, and I realized that Rapunzel would be one to take the baby during the day and I could use this tale! Yippee!
> 
> Thank you, Goldspinner and ada_asgard for your comments on the last chapter! I'm so happy you are still loving this fiction! Not much left to this fiction now. Let's make this thing count shall we?! Coming up next is a chapter that I think we've all be super eager to see since MX&U! I hope you'll think it's okay! Peace and Happy Reading!


	9. Family Ties

"Late again?"

"It's the mornings, Rumple and I are working out a new schedule with Gideon."

"I've noticed. There's my Little Prince Charming!"

They'd been trying and surprisingly enough succeeding at their new schedule. In some ways, with him sharing the room with her like before, it was very much like simply discovering what they'd lost and then adding Gideon into the mix. In the mornings Rumple was the first to use the bathroom, she held their son, changed him, and was usually halfway through is feeding when Rumple finally came in to relieve her and let her shower and change to prepare for work herself. It worked. The only problem was that neither of them had been to work on time since beginning this odd new exploration. In part, it was because of the sleep. They took turns now at night, caring for their son one after the other so that they were even getting to the point when they all too happily pushed one another out of bed when it was their turn, and wondered how many more times they'd wake each night. She suspected he was beginning to admit even to himself that sleep made him both a better person, but interrupting it so much made him a much more tired person. Always the first to rise she'd begun to notice that since they'd had their talk, he was likely to sleep right through the rest of the morning with her, until Gideon's screams woke them both up and they began their day. Their nights were busy, but somehow filled with laughter and jokes. And their days…those had become much more evenly split, despite Rapunzel's remarks.

Gideon now spent half of every other day in the shop with his father, to make up for taking him away at night. Rapunzel hadn't taken kindly to it, enjoying having her godson to take care of in addition to the library, but they'd started a trend of going to lunch every other day, just the two of them, and dropping Gideon off at Rumple's shop beforehand. The shop was now equipped with a bassinet, one that was sturdy and worked, as well as a small refrigerator and microwave to accommodate all of Gideon's needs.

This was one of those days. Gideon would spend half the day with them before she and Rapunzel went to lunch and left Gideon with his father. It usually put Rapunzel in a sour mood, but letting her have more time with him in the mornings usually countered that easily enough and now that she was getting up at night as well, she was finally tired enough to be happy to have someone to turn him over to when she arrived at work.

"Good morning, handsome man!" Rapunzel shrieked as she reached into the stroller she'd bought just that week and pulled Gideon out. Suddenly her late arrival appeared to be forgotten.

"You wouldn't say that if you spent half your night up with him."

"Well, any time you want to give me the chance, I'll take it. We would have a great week together, wouldn't we, Gideon?!" She shook her head, wondering where in that conversation Rapunzel had gone from watching Gideon for one night, to an entire week. But she dismissed it, and went back to unpacking her bag for the day as Rapunzel spoiled Gideon for her.

The spoiling never seemed to last long, as it was difficult for even Rapunzel to spoil a sleeping baby. Soon enough she took Gideon upstairs to his fold out crib and returned with the baby monitor, so they could get to work. It was a productive day, they re-shelved books, updated a few of the donations into the computer, visited Granny along with Gideon for lunch, and discussed a few of Rapunzel's latest poem quotes, which she still hadn't entirely figured out to do with.

"They're growing."

"I know…" she grinned looking over the stack on the desk. "But you know, it got me thinking maybe we could do a quote of the day! Get a chalkboard and put a different quote out every day. Maybe we could make a contest out of it."

"And what would give away as a prize?"

"Candy, toys, stickers, anything! We could start handing out Encyclopedias! No one seems to want to use them since the last curse broke."

Yes, she'd noticed that too. Storybrooke was changing. Overnight she'd seen cell phones begin to spring up, and not the kind that she had; it was the kind Emma and Henry carried, smartphones. And that wasn't all. The library had received a delivery on behalf of the city the other day, a dozen new computers, slimmer and lighter than the bulky one that Will taught her to use the internet on. She'd exchanged the two in a heartbeat and noticed the connection was faster now too. And just that morning, on her way to work, she'd seen one of their neighbors having a dish installed on their roof. Something about the breaking of the last curse was different. She was beginning to feel more like Storybrooke was part of the world as a whole, instead of an isolated little island and she wanted desperately, hoped with every fiber of her being, that was a good sign. She hoped it meant that all the bad they'd faced was truly over and done, and they could move on with their lives and assimilate into this new world. She hoped.

"Hey, have you noticed-"

But her words were cut off by the library door opening and a figure struggling to pull something inside. When she caught sight of the hair her heart stopped and she looked over her shoulder at Rapunzel, wondering if it was possible to run and hide somewhere, anything to avoid this conversation! She'd been dreading for weeks. But Rapunzel only shook her head, refusing to let her go anywhere. She obviously had been waiting for Snow White to visit them.

"Hi Snow!" she greeted cheerfully as the mother pulled a stroller into the library with little Neal asleep inside. That was the only part of this unexpected arrival that made her smirk. She liked little Neal. And he slept like the dead just her son did.

"Rapunzel, hi!" Snow smiled, grinning ear to ear at the sight of her friend. Her feet stayed firmly planted on the ground while Rapunzel moved around her and reached out to hug the woman.

"It's good to see you again," she said. "And the baby!" Rapunzel peered into the stroller and patted his tummy, ignoring the fact that he was asleep. "Last time I saw you, you were still in your mommy's tummy! Gideon is upstairs sleeping, if you want, I can take him and let you two talk."

She glared at the back of her friends head. "Let them talk"! She was not prepared to speak with Snow White, not after all that had happened! She hadn't seen the woman since she'd found her wedding dress and while she'd been amiable then, perhaps willing to move on eventually, that had been before she'd believed that she'd kidnapped her own child because hers had died! What was Rapunzel thinking?!

Snow looked down at Neal in his stroller, tempted by the offer but much to her relief shook her head. "That's okay, I think he's fine, I wouldn't want to move him and risk waking him up. These days it's a blessing when he sleeps. But thank you, though."

"No problem," Rapunzel smiled stepping away and looking back at her.

The three women formed the three corners of a triangle, but she felt that it was more of an angle at the moment, she and Snow each making up separate points of it but disconnected through the events that had happened weeks ago. They both looked at Rapunzel, the one connection they had that was friendly and amiable. But when nothing but silence rose between them, her smile vanished and she looked back and forth between them all.

"Well…I think I hear Gideon so I better go check on him," Rapunzel finally excused with a smile.

"I don't hear anything."

"My hearing is better than yours." Rapunzel glared at her with wide eyes as she made her way to the desk, grabbed the baby monitor, and flipped it off. "Yep, definitely waking up. I'll leave you two to it. Tell David I say 'hi' when you see him."

"I will, thanks."

"Rapunzel!" she shouted out as she left, but all she heard echo through the halls was "Gotta go!" before she disappeared among the shelves on her way up to the apartment, leaving her alone in a room with Snow White…the last person she really wanted to be in a room with. There had been a lot of healing done in the last few weeks, a lot of progress made toward forgiveness and getting rid of her anger. But this was the one place, the one relationship that had been left open to bleed, the nerves exposed, the infection grown. They'd thought that they had kidnapped a child to replace Gideon. It had taken her four weeks to come and see her after all that had happened between Emma and Gideon! When they'd needed help, it was Regina who made the request, not Snow. She'd been avoiding them. So why was she here now? Staring at her? Not saying a word as they faced each other across the room?

Finally, Snow took a breath, she looked down at Neal, then back at her and then at a spot above her head and opened her mouth only to close it again. And then open it again.

"You know, I-"

"How is that woman?" she questioned quickly. It was a cowardly question, one she knew she was only asking because she was certain that she wasn't ready to hear what she had to say just yet. But from the puzzled look on Snow's face, she could tell that she wasn't quite sure what she was talking about.

"The uh, the woman, the old one, the one Rumple make the potion for…did everything work out alright?"

"Oh, yes!" Snow answered eagerly. If she didn't know any better, she seemed just as happy to have something else to talk about as she was. "Yeah, she died a couple of weeks ago."

She felt her jaw drop and her eyes widen. When things worked out, she didn't expect to hear that death was involved! She was speechless. What on earth-

"Oh, but it was a good thing though!" Snow inserted quickly. "It's complicated, there's a much longer story to it, but the short version is that it turned out that she had a very rare disease that her body couldn't fight off. When she decided not to pursue more medical treatment her daughter wanted more time with her so…"

"Her daughter was the one who was holding her mother there."

"A…it was really more of a spell gone wrong and good intentions…not gone bad but not unharmful either. She just wanted more time and had a difficult time letting go."

"But she passed?" she clarified. "She was ready?"

Snow nodded. "And the daughter was too. I mean no one is ever really 'ready' for something like that but she was as prepared as she could be, she had her closure. It wasn't the ending we expected but it was happy. And…for David and I too. We're moving. Tomorrow actually."

"Moving?!" she blanched. She could have sworn that this many surprises all at once were not good for her heart, but she was equally sure that this kind of small talk was far more preferable than what Snow had initially wanted to talk about. "Out of Storybrooke?"

"No, nothing like that," she smiled. "We had been looking for a house to move into for a while, the loft was perfect for Mary Margaret and Emma but small for a family of three, even with Emma moved out. And Faline, the daughter of the woman, she called us after her mother passed and asked if we wanted the farmhouse her mother had been living at. She said there were too many memories and wanted to get rid of it fast so it all worked out in the end."

"A farmhouse." She tried to picture the charming family on a farm, milking cows, herding sheep, riding horses. The last bit was easy enough to picture from their time in the Enchanted Forest, but it was also that time she'd spent with them in the Enchanted Forest that made the first bit difficult to picture.

"Oh, David was a shepherd in the Enchanted Forest, he knows how to look after a farm."

"A shepherd!" David? Prince Charming? She felt as though her head was spinning. So many changes were coming to Storybrooke. "Well…doesn't that take time? I thought he worked with Emma."

"Hook is taking over his position, even learning to drive a car, which is terrifying if you drive with him, land transportation is not his strong suite, but he's getting the hang of it slowly. As soon as we can get him to stop calling 'right and left' 'port and starboard' we'll be fine. And David is looking forward to getting back to his roots, working with sheep and horses again. And it's got plenty of space for Neal to grow up and learn to ride a horse. And enough rooms that Emma, Hook, and Henry can all stay the night if they want to. It's…it's a good thing."

She'd finally taken a breath, suddenly aware that she'd been rambling instead of just talking with her and needed to slow down. She was nervous to be here. But then so was she.

"That's good," she commented quietly. "I'm…I'm happy for you. Both of you. All of you," she smiled looking over at Neal.

"Yeah…"

The room grew silent again. All caught up on everything that had happened since they'd last seen each other that left only one final topic for discussion and she wasn't certain either of them really wanted to have it. But Snow was here, and she'd taken that first step. Would she take another? And could she reciprocate it?

"Listen…I talked to Henry and I've been talking to Regina a lot lately and it occurred to me that weeks ago…some things were said that were very uncharacteristic and-"

"Evil," she provided feeling the shock grow on her face. Those "things" that were said were not just uncharacteristic, they had been downright evil. But she could tell from the way her face fell that Snow White hadn't ever considered an adjective that strong before now.

"I was going to go with 'rude' but if you think that's a better word…" she said quietly, her face ashen as tears gathered in her eyes.

"You said you would bond with Emma over killing my son," she reminded her.

Snow opened her mouth but then closed it again, she could see the breath that was caught in her lungs, the words that she'd had prepared swelling and dying in her chest as she considered what she'd said as well as what she could say.

"Yes, I did say that, but…to be fair he was threatening the life of my daughter."

"And that makes it alright?" she questioned gently. Though she wanted to scream and cry and yell she had no intention of causing more harm to the woman who was already struggling with the truth of just how bad things had been. She had the strength to keep calm, even if it was difficult. She had things to say, but she was strong enough to say them, not scream them.

"You acted to defend your child and when I did the same you acted like I was doing such an awful thing. When Emma had the Dark Curse you went to great lengths to protect her in Camelot. Why are you to be celebrated for protecting your child at her worst when Rumple and I were scorned? What made Emma worth saving and Gideon irrelevant? And for that matter, when Emma was the Dark One, what made her redeemable and Rumple unsalvageable, nothing more than a sacrifice to be dismissed when he was human and in trouble? I thought better of you. I thought you valued all lives. I thought we were better friends than that."

"I know. We were…are…I hoped…"

But she didn't finish her sentence. Oddly enough it was the one thing she did right, she just hadn't known it until now. She didn't fight the accusations she'd thrown at her, didn't try to explain or make excuses, or deny them. She simply accepted them. And did nothing to refute them. It helped, but it didn't erase the scars. It didn't fix what had happened. And while the silence that stretched between them now was different than it had been a few moments ago, more comfortable, less tense, it was still awkward as they stared at one another, wondering where they were supposed to go if neither could say "sorry" and mean it, and yet each had their regrets.

"Henry can't finish the storybook," Snow finally muttered after a few heartbeats.

She sighed and casually wiped at the small bit of moisture that had formed under her eye. A change of subject. That was probably about the only place they could go after all that.

"Why not?" she inquired, her voice stiff and strained from the swollen bulge in her throat. "Has he uh…has he figured out why."

She nodded. "Because it's not a happy ending. Emma and Gideon safe but all of us still fighting and angry with each other…that's not a happy ending, that's letting evil win."

"So that's why you're here?" she questioned. "To make amends so Henry can finish his book?"

"I'm here because hearing him say that was eye-opening and I want to fix it."

And there they were again, contemplating how it was possible to fix what she was sure couldn't be whole again.

"How?" she wondered aloud.

"Next week? We're having Thanksgiving dinner at Granny's, and I want you to come. You and Rumple and Gideon."

"You want us to pretend to be a family again?"

"No, I want us to be a family again. To put some of this behind us and start fresh. It's…it's all around us! We are right on the brink of new chapters, all of us. David and I with the house, Hook with the new job! Regina is finally doing mayor jobs she hasn't had time to do since the curse began, Zelena is settled in, and you and Rumple have a life with Gideon. We're all so close to starting a new chapter I want us to do what we have to do so that we can do it together."

It was a pretty speech, one that she was very tempted to give into but in the end, her heart still ached over what had happened, and instead of jubilation, she felt timid sadness.

"I don't know if I'm…ready."

"That's okay. There's still a week to think about it."

It was at that moment that she heard a noise, one that she had been used to hearing over the last few weeks but not from her boy, it came from the stroller Snow had been pushing. Neal had woken. And getting older as he was, he was less inclined to cry when he woke, more likely to babble hoping his mother would hear him, which she did. Snow immediately plucked the smiling boy from his place and held him in her arms. It was amazing just how much growing he could do in a few months. It startled her to think that Gideon would be that big soon. He'd probably be taller than her before he was ten if he grew at Neal's rate!

Smiling at the thought, she found herself moving forward and offering her hands to the boy, who saw her and reached out for her, leaning out of his mother's arms so that she could take him from her and hold him herself for the first time in a long while. He was heavier than she remembered. But he still smelled the same and looked at her with familiar eyes.

"I've missed this little guy."

"I know you took care of him when we were in the Underworld. I never thanked you for that."

"It was nothing," she dismissed honestly. Going to look after Neal and Robin had honestly been the highlight of her day each and every time.

"I always knew you'd make a good mother."

She finally took her eyes off of Neal to look over at Snow and found her beaming. A good mother. After what happened after Gideon had been born there were still times she wondered…

But that was all in the past. And in the present, if Rumpelstiltskin's praise was to be believed, she was doing much better than she had when he was first born.

"I'm trying. There is still a lot to learn and not really much to it at a month old, but we're learning."

"And things with Rumpelstiltskin? They're going well?"

She nodded through her smile. That was a topic she felt certain about. She'd been right all along and she wanted everyone who had ever doubted her, ever doubted him, to know about it.

"It's like he's a new man," she confirmed, thinking about all that had happened these last few weeks. "We're both very happy."

And they were. So much that there was no doubt in her mind whether Rumple was happy about all the changes they'd been through. She had no urge to take the words back or put in caveats or even hope for the best. They were happy. She could see it in them night after night, day after day. They were happy.

"Belle…promise me you'll think about it; about coming to dinner. You know there aren't a lot of little ones we know in town for Neal to play with, it would be nice to have you and Gideon back in our lives, for the better this time. And I know they could both use a playmate eventually."

She felt the swell of happiness begin to shrink in her chest as she was caught by memories of their past and began to wonder if they'd fall back into those problems all over again so easily. She didn't want it to just be her and Gideon. She wouldn't let it be the two of them and not the three of them.

"And Rumple, too?" she clarified.

"Well, of course," Snow answered without hesitation. "He's Henry's grandfather."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go. I told you a lot of those little chapters were set up. The house the Charmings are moving into belonged to the old woman they helped. At this point they've had time to do the paperwork and are getting ready to move, that should be kosher. And then the chapter that featured Henry not being able to finish his book, I promised that had further inclinations and these are them. For Snow, I figured that listening to Henry tell the story of what Rumple and Belle went through on their end with Gideon might give her a good kick in the pants to realize that things had been less than ideally handled when older Gideon was in town and there were things that had to be said about that. We have here an invitation to dinner and nothing more. Both women are unhappy, very little is resolved and I did that for the same reason I didn't let Belle and her father reconcile just as much as why I had Belle tell Hook to forget about Milah (more or less) in MX&U. Sometimes things are just a mess. The past is the past. You can't change it, you can't fix it, and sometimes you just have to say there is nothing we can do about that but change the way we move forward. I saw these situations as falling into that category. What happened, happened. They need to learn from it what they can, and move on, or else they'll live in it forever. Belle does that by insisting that they see her family as a family of three, and Snow does it at the end with the acknowledgment of Rumple as Henry's grandfather. Small steps forward, but significant in my mind.
> 
> Many thanks to Taisch and Goldspinner for comments on the last chapter. I'm glad that you liked the way that little conversation played out. With only five chapters left we have some final things to finish up and I hope you are going to enjoy those moments just as much. Truly, from here, I think that all these chapters are positive ones. Hasn't this fiction been therapeutic? Peace and Happy Reading!


	10. Forgiving and Forgetting

"Belle...Belle..." Soft whispers and the feeling of hands around her arms brought her out of the black haziness of sleep and into the bright, crispness of their home. When she opened her eyes, she saw Rumpelstiltskin in front of her, his hands supporting her arms which bore the weight of their son sleeping peacefully against her shoulder.

"You fell asleep," he pointed out as her arms tightened over Gideon. "I didn't want you to drop him."

"Thank you," she smiled. Her eyelids were still heavy with sleep when she looked up into Rumple's eyes and saw tears gathered there for no possible reason that she could fathom. "You're crying!"

He shook his head as he relieved her of Gideon carefully enough not to wake him. "I had the privilege of seeing something beautiful. That's been known to bring a tear to the eye on occasion," he explained setting their son in the bassinet they now kept downstairs.

With a smile and a blush, she plucked herself out of the rocking chair so that she could move to sit at the far end of the sofa, next to the armchair he'd taken to using for himself. "I'm sure I look anything but beautiful at the moment. It's been such a long day and I'm so tired I think I could fall asleep right here!"

"You are beautiful," he responded sitting down, predictably, in the armchair. "But the image of you napping with our son…it's times like that I wish I had a camera in the house."

"There are at least a dozen in the shop, you know."

He nodded. "I know…but they're old, second hand and bulky. I'd prefer to have one a bit more compact."

She made a mental note of that. It wasn't often that Rumpelstiltskin confessed a desire for something like a camera in the details he'd provided. Information like that could one day be very valuable if the right time ever presented itself.

She felt a yawn coming on from where she sat did her best to close her eyes and swallow it back on a sigh, but it was of no use, it popped out of her mouth whether she wanted it to or not. It was an odd sort of thing they'd developed. She was happy to be tired, grateful because it meant that the nighttime duties of their son were now evenly divided. She'd asked for this, yet he let her complain about it without ever questioning if she wanted to stop and just sleep because she did not. Complaining about being tired with a one month old was normal. It was what all parents did, and she wouldn't trade one bit of it for the entire world.

But she did glance at the clock, an acknowledgment of the deal they'd made with themselves and with each other. Gideon slept as he wanted to, with no bedtime because he was simply too young for all of that, they had set a goal for themselves however to make it to at least nine o'clock before they retired, in an effort to maintain some kind of sense of schedule. It was a rule that made her want to laugh and cry all at the same time. She'd always been more of a night owl, the last time she'd been required to be in bed by nine she'd been ten and even then, she used to stay up far later reading in her bed. Yet even now as she looked at the clock she was vastly aware that she was counting down the last fifteen minutes of their day eagerly. Nine couldn't come fast enough. She only hoped that when it did Gideon would remain asleep.

Fortunately, Rumple, who she swore was also tired but didn't show it as much as her, was excellent at providing conversation during this part of the night, the time when she most wanted to drift off with her son. In fact, if he'd been in here with her as she rocked Gideon, instead of doing the dishes, she was certain she never would have fallen asleep.

"I saw Snow White go into the library today," he commented as they sat there in the room together, too tired to do anything but talk and yet determined to make these last fifteen minutes count for something.

"Oh, you did, did you?"

"I happened to glance out the window and observe it."

Of course, she had told him the very day when Snow White had first come into her library to talk to her what had happened. He hadn't been surprised by the news as he just so happened to "observe" it then too. He was a bit hypersensitive about the library. So long as he worked in the front of his shop he could easily see who came and went. It was a learned behavior, she assumed. Things had been so quiet in Storybrooke for weeks now that she was convinced everyone was on pins and needles waiting for it all to end and the next disaster to strike. So long as the library contained his family, he expressed his paranoia in that way, keeping an eye out for anyone and everyone who entered the library on a daily basis. Somedays he reminded her of people she'd seen, like today when Snow had stopped by, unannounced for the second time.

It had been two days since her initial visit, two days since she'd told Rumple almost all the story, leaving out only the invitation to dinner in the days to come because she wasn't sure she was ready for him to know that bit just yet. But the visit today, while slightly awkward, had been harmless. Her primary focus had been on reminding her about the dinner, but the secondary focus had quickly emerged when Rapunzel had retrieved her crying baby and brought him downstairs.

"She stopped by again, wanted to see Gideon and introduce him to Neal," she explained gently. "I think that she thinks they could be playmates when they're old enough."

"They could indeed. Certainly the right age. Did she say anything else about the other matter?"

"No," she muttered. The dinner had come up but nothing about what had happened during Gideon's time as the town villain. She seemed very determined to put that time behind her and move forward with their relationship, repairing what had been damaged, instead of dwelling on the damage that was done itself. It was a bit disconcerting. She wasn't sure if she was ready to move forward in the obvious way that Snow was yet. It was hard to be sure, after what happened, where her loyalty lay. She wanted to believe that in the future should something come up she would be supportive and respect their wishes, treating her and her husband as equal and important parts of the team they always forms when trouble struck. But her mind kept reminding her that this was not the first time that something like this had happened. Perhaps it had never taken place on such an enormous scale before, but it had happened before. Would it again?

"It's hard to know what's real with her now. I'd always thought we were friends but then to do something like she did and say some of the things like they said-"

"Parents do irrational things to make sure their children are alright, Belle. You know that."

She stared at him a bit in shock. Yes, she knew that. She preferred not to think of the irrational things that she had done to make sure Gideon was safe because it had backfired so miserably she knew she would live with it and regret it for the rest of her life. But what was surprising to her wasn't how keen he was to remind her of it, but the implication of who he was protecting with that sentence.

"Are you defending her?" she questioned. People did irrational things for their children, but that was simply uncharacteristic of Rumpelstiltskin. Defending Snow White? It wasn't like him.

"Perhaps. To be honest I'm a bit more surprised that you're not. You are usually the first person to see people as they are."

"And then I misjudged the people I thought were my friends and the man I love so poorly...can you blame me for doubting myself?"

He shook his head. "No, but your instincts have always been genuine and correct in some way. You've been able to sense the good in people who don't show it and the evil in those who hide it. A good person can make mistakes, it doesn't negate everything they've ever done."

"And evil beings can do good deeds, but it never seems enough to forgive them."

"Not initially. Do you think she meant harm that day? When she came into the shop and said those things about Gideon, do you think they were true?"

She thought of that, took herself back to those terrible comments and replayed them in her mind acknowledging that they were so twisted in her mind it was difficult to remember exactly how she'd said them. But she remembered how Snow had acted, that spoke volumes.

"I believe that if given the chance they would have killed Gideon."

"Yes, but do you believe she would have enjoyed such a task? Or that she was happy to be in that position."

"She certainly made it sound as though she would have been."

"People say things in the heat of the moment that they don't mean all the time. Things that are misinterpreted and misconstrued."

"They thought that we replaced Gideon, Rumple. That we took a newborn we just found on the street and they left us to our grief. No one came to see us." Even she knew that argument didn't follow logically with the conversation they'd been having. A remark like that in the argument was irrelevant as it was a grievance all on its own. One he apparently could tear down easily with only a few words.

"And when did you go see her?"

She had no comments for that, no answer because in truth she hadn't gone to see her and she knew why. She could lie, she could say that she was busy, they'd suddenly had a newborn on their hands and had to scramble to get their lives back together. That excuse certainly would have passed, but only for the first week. Two at the most. In the time that followed she could think of dozens of times when she would have been able to go see Snow White, when they could have spoken of what happened and tried to come to some kind of agreement with it. But she hadn't. And she knew that because she could think of a dozen times that she had actively avoided seeing Snow White. She'd been glad when Regina had done the dirty work of bringing the potion request to them. Before she and Rapunzel stepped foot inside Granny's she'd kept an eye out for her and once changed her mind about going saying she wasn't hungry just because she'd been inside. She'd always believed that friendship, like any relationship, had to include two committed parties. She knew that if she was put to the test she would not have held her end up.

Still, it was difficult to say that she'd do anything different when the Black Fairy was in town. If she'd been in her position, she wanted to believe she would have handled it better, but she couldn't say that she would have. If the situation were reversed, she would have protected Gideon just as Snow had protected Emma. And even with their situation as it was she wouldn't take back defending Gideon for a single moment. The Black Fairy had placed them on two opposite sides of a war. She wasn't sure there was any outcome where they would have been able to be on the same side. And yet…to forgive it all even knowing that was difficult.

"Forgiveness is a strange thing," she mumbled in observation. "It's difficult when it should be easy and easy when it should be difficult."

"Oh?" Rumple prompted as she stared at the ceiling. But when she looked over at him she saw a trace of curiosity and wisdom in his eyes that were misplaced. He thought that she was having some kind of revelation about Snow White, and she supposed that she might be, but this riddle had an easier answer that was right in front of both of them. They were the living example of it.

How many times had they wronged each other? How many times had they hurt one another? In the grand scheme of life the offenses they'd committed against each other were far greater than any offenses they'd committed against others and yet here they sat, with their child slumbering across the room and grudges held against Snow White and her father. What they'd done had been shorter and simpler than what they'd done to each other and yet those were the offenses they struggled with. She couldn't speak for him, but she knew that the sins he'd had against her…they were gone.

"I've forgiven you." The words were only a breath and she felt her eyes go wide with the realization. She hadn't considered it before now but she searched her heart in the aftermath of those words and discovered they were true. She'd forgiven him!

"Oh?" he repeated, his gaze shifting to shock and surprised. It was a gaze to match her own. Neither had expected this kind of turn in their conversation. "For…"

"All of it," she answered, the words flying free from her mouth before she could stop them. But much like her previous comment, when she paused to consider if the words were true or not, she was astounded to discover they were. All of it. The deal he'd made with Hades, not telling her about the curse, all the anger she had stored up over being held and nearly murdered on the Jolly Roger, the scissors and the threats to take Gideon away from her…it was all gone. Months ago, the very thought of those words had made her fists tighten and her face go red with rage. Now she only felt sad thinking about it, about all the wasted time, all the harsh words, everything that she'd allowed herself to feel instead of happy. And yet...she also knew that this couldn't have happened any other way.

"When?" he questioned further. Singular words suggested he was so caught off guard he was unable to form complete sentences.

When? That was exactly the question? When had all this happened? When had the anger left? When had she released it all and just decided to move on? She couldn't find that moment.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I thought for a long time it would be the hardest thing to do, but one day the anger was there and the next it wasn't. It was so easy it wasn't even a conscious thought, just something I did. I looked up, and you had a clean slate…just like that. The scars remain, but the rest is just gone. Replaced with the fear that one day I'll wake up and find I was the fool and it happened all over again."

"That won't happen," he stressed, reaching out to bridge the gap between them and joining their hands together. "This time is different. With you and Gideon…it's different than it's ever been."

She refused to comment, just let the warmth of his hand grant all the comfort it could. It was different. She wanted it to be different this time. But she wasn't about to bring up just how many times she'd heard him say that things were different and always turned out to be the same. Somehow, she thought that dwelling on that particular subject would produce the opposite results of the difference she was hoping for.

So where did that leave them then?

"Do you think…do you think you could ever forgive me?" she wondered aloud, her voice a whisper around the lump in her throat.

"There's nothing to forgive," Rumple whispered.

She rolled her eyes and tightened her hand within his own fingers. "Don't say that," she cried. That was ridiculous. There was everything to forgive. They hadn't gotten into this situation by his hand alone, after all. She had her own sins to atone for. When it came to Gideon, she knew she would spend the rest of her life trying to make it up to him whether he remembered his past or not. But with Rumple…she constantly wondered just how much farther she had to go, if things ever could be excused. He'd been just as angry with her as she had been with him, to say there was nothing to forgive was a ridiculous notion.

"No, let me explain," he muttered sitting forward. "There is nothing to forgive because I've already forgiven it. I can't be angry at you without being angry at my own actions and if you can forgive those…who am I to hold a grudge against myself and you. It's just…it's truly a clean slate. I want it to be new between us. A fresh start."

He stared at her, waiting for her to say something in response to his declaration. But she had no words. There was an odd sensation buzzing in the space around them and somehow the air felt heavier than it had since they'd come back together. That awkward feeling had suddenly returned, the exact same feeling they'd both felt when there was something missing between them. The feeling spoke for itself, loud enough to make moving to break it nerve wracking, but soft enough that doing nothing seemed impossible.

She glanced over at the bassinet, double checking that Gideon was still asleep. Then, with a nervous swallow, she rose from her space on the couch, moved by his words and drawn by his unfamiliar but easy compassion. He stared up at her with a gaze that was curious, but knowing and hopeful all at the same time, never once letting go of his hand. An armchair wasn't the biggest or easiest piece of furniture they had, but she was small enough to make due. It was a tight fit, but her legs slid easily into each of the gaps between chair and leg while he bore the rest of her weight over his lap. There was a heartbeat when they both moved and adjusted into a comfortable position, relearning bodies and what it was to be this close together as they were. His hands stayed respectfully planted on her waist, and her own moved to frame his head. There was a moment of stillness, of looking into eyes and asking the questions necessary, perhaps each waiting for a rebuke of some kind, the words that were required to stop what was happening, then they both gave in at once leaning forward and offering a kiss that began gently enough, but soon evolved.

They were not chaste kisses, nothing like the kind of kisses they'd been giving each other in the past month, these kisses were a step above and beyond. Tongues and lips and teeth and breath all moving simultaneously in a perfect synchronization she would have thought they'd forgotten but realized quickly she never could. There was heat between them. When she pulled forward he pushed back and when he leaned back she fell with him. Neither were unintelligent, both knew exactly what embraces like this led to, which was probably why it had taken so long to get back to this kind of interaction. She wasn't surprised, in fact, she felt relieved in a way, when she felt his hands begin to wander. First from her waist down over her thighs and then under her skirt, to curves he hadn't touched in months. His touch burned in the best of ways, making her want more and she was pleased when she felt those hands move back over her waist and start tugging at the fabric of her shirt desperate to get at what was underneath. She took it as an invitation for her as well and let her hands drift down his chest, counting the time she knew it would take her to get to his belt buckle. It was hasty and quick, and she shuddered as his lips went to her neck and collarbone before finding her mouth again. And then-

A harsh loud wail filled the room.

With a smack of lips, they both pulled away to gaze over at the bassinet Gideon lay in, the source of the crying that had suddenly interrupted them and sobered both of them. They fell back into one another, instantly a crumpled heap of wrinkled clothes and heated bodies desperate to catch a breath.

"He has…the worst timing…" she breathed, letting her forehead rest against his own. She felt like she'd just run a mile and a half from a dragon, and that had all been well and good a few moments ago, but this was easily the most exertion she'd had in a long while. She picked herself up out of the chair and Rumple went to gather their son in his arm as she fiddled with her shirt, making it decent once more. But when he looked back at her she felt herself blush as eyes trailed over her body, observing her actions in a wistful and sad way while her belly fluttered. She'd forgotten how he could make her feel as awkward and desperate as a teenager.

"It's probably for the better," he mumbled sadly. "Didn't you say you were tired?"

"I wasn't a minute ago."

He chuckled, then threaded his hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. "I'll get him calmed down before he screams himself hoarse and we'll put him to bed."

She nodded straightened her skirt before taking Gideon so he could buckle his belt again and close the top button of his shirt, which she couldn't even remember undoing for him. But she felt her heart swelled as he opened his arms to take Gideon once more. He was put back together…and she couldn't say that she was happy about it. And if the look he was giving her form was any indication he wasn't exactly happy about the interruption either.

"Probably for the best," he whispered again before moving around her and taking Gideon into the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter, we're going to talk about some of the fears they have that were expressed in this chapter as well as in the next chapter. But, I suppose, if I have any other comments to make on this chapter, it's the fact that it surprised me. In outlining it, I would have thought Rumple would be all for Belle cutting Snow out of their life and originally had Rapunzel be "the encourager" in this chapter, but when I really thought about it...it made sense for Rumple to argue for forgiveness. Just...hear me out on this. For one it shows growth for him. He is recognizing that she needs friends and that he and Gideon can't be the center of her world. Snow White, who has a baby their age, would be an optimal choice for that. Second, I think after the incident with her father, he would want her to repair some relationships. He's already observed the destruction of one relationship in her life and whether it had to happen or not I do feel like he'd feel responsible for it. I don't think he would want Gideon to be responsible for another one. Even if he's too young to know it, it does carry weight to it and I don't think Rumple would ever want his son to feel that. And last, but actually most important of all, logically it made sense. Rumple is older and wiser than Belle. I think that he has gotten as far as he has by learning not to burn your bridges. He sees people as opportunities and even if he is trying to get away from the Dark Magic that doesn't change. The truth is that Snow White and Prince Charming are key players in the town and when something goes wrong they are good allies to have in your back pocket. Rumple knows that breaking all ties to them would be stupid. And for those reasons, I felt that it was a relationship Rumple would encourage. After all, he doesn't know about the dinner invite yet and he's not suggesting that Belle and Snow take a blood oath of sisterhood, he's not even saying he wants them to go to the movies together. In fact, all he's saying here is exactly what Belle has been saying to everyone besides Snow. What happened sucks, but it's in the past. Let's move on.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you, Taisch and Goldspinner, for your comments. I hope the end of this comes as a nice little surprise to you. A slow burn is still a burn. I did want to add some heat back into this story, but naturally and slowly. This seemed like a good place to begin to rediscover that. Truth is flippin' sexy as hell, ya'll! And I loved the idea that Belle would think so too. I liked the idea that now that they don't have this weight of guilt and regret and indebtedness standing between them they are free to get back to each other again like they weren't before. More will come! You have my word. Peace and Happy Reading!


	11. Conversations Between Friends

It was afternoon on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and so far the day had been spectacular. Gideon had slept for a record four hours straight the night before, and though she didn't expect something like that to hold steady for tonight, the extra break had given her just enough of a boost to make her day exceptional. So much so that she and Rapunzel had left Gideon with Rumple just before lunch and then gone to do some shopping. She'd bought her first pair of dress pants today, the same kind Rapunzel liked to wear, the same kind she'd worn when her friend had been away and she'd borrowed her clothes. The pants, along with a handsome new dress shirt for Rumple were impulse buys, the dresses and skirts, however, along with several new outfits for Gideon, were desperately needed at the house. With a newborn, shopping wasn't always easy, and after the curse left her with none of her old familiar clothes, she felt like she was still playing catch up with it all. In part, because she hated to take work time to do something so frivolous as shopping, but with the approaching holiday, she'd begun to notice that their sleepy town was getting even more chaotic than she'd known it could be. The grocery stores were packed, Granny's was filled to the brim with people all the time, but several families, for the first time in this land, were leaving for vacations with their families. She'd heard of one group going to New York City. Another was going to see the Grand Canyon. There was even a rumor that one family with small children was going to Disney World, though no one ever seemed to know who that family was. But the wildest thing of all, was on Monday, for the first time ever, several of them had stared in wonder as a bus arrived at the bus stop and picked up two people, a young couple, to take them north to Canada. The change in the town in the last month had been remarkable and with the quiet that was descending for the holidays she'd felt no guilt in leaving the library locked for an extra couple of hours to do the shopping. But they'd vowed it would only be a couple of hours and a couple of hours it was. They were heading back to the library, their hands heavy with the extra bags they carried, chatting aimlessly when Rapunzel declared

"I'm thinking of doing something crazy."

She glanced over at her friend, their steps slowing only for a second after she let her news drop. There were several seconds when she waited for her to go on, but no words came out.

"Crazy like…"

"Asking Flynn and Ayana to dinner at my parents for Thanksgiving."

She looked her over completely confused for a moment. "Well now, why would that be crazy?" But the moment she'd said the words she noticed her eyes look away with guilt and a small amount of fear. Suddenly she remembered a reason that might seem "crazy", though if it was true, she was surprised that reason existed. "Rapunzel…" she hooked her arm through her friend's elbow to stop her from walking away. This didn't mean what she thought it meant, did it? "Have you still not told your parents about Flynn yet?!"

Rapunzel sighed and rolled her eyes. "Not exactly, no."

"Rapunzel!"

"I've been waiting for the right time!" she exclaimed beginning their stroll down the sidewalk again. "The problem is that the right time never seems to come around."

"Rapunzel, you are living with him."

"Not officially!" she argued. "Storybrooke still recognizes my address as the apartment over the library, which means, legally, I don't live with him! We work in the library, I looked it up."

"But you haven't actually lived in the apartment since before Gideon was born. Gideon spends more time up there than you do."

"Yes, but…"

But one glance at her friend and she saw her determination cave.

"Yeah, okay…I'm living with him. But it wasn't a problem until this stupid holiday came up and both my parents and Flynn want me to spend it with them! The solution would be so simple, invite Flynn and Ayana to their house with me, but since they don't know about Flynn or his little sister-"

"Rapunzel, you have to tell them…soon! You don't want the first introduction to be that you are living together, you're lucky it hasn't already gotten around town and back to them as it is. It's better if they hear it from you rather than Granny."

"Oh, Granny knows not to tell them! We've had that talk a dozen times."

"And she agrees with that?"

"No…she agrees with you, actually. But…you know you aren't exactly the poster child for parents who react well to their children's relationships!" Beside her Rapunzel came to a dead stop and closed her eyes, looking up to the sky and shaking her head. "I'm sorry…that was a low blow."

"No, you're right," she dismissed, surprised that the comment hadn't hurt her as much as she would have expected. Maybe she really was moving forward after all that. "But you know I brought the Dark One home to my father, you are just bringing Flynn and the sister he is caring for. I don't understand the fear of that. I'd be more worried about how far it's gone without them knowing."

"Well…Flynn has a bit of a sketchy past before he met me."

"It's a shame no one in this town can relate to that..."

"I know, I know," she chirped as the library came into view up ahead. "I'm just…I'm afraid. And I've worked so hard these past few months not to be that scared little kid I was when I first showed up in Storybrooke or when David found me in that tower. Being scared again is just…it makes me even more nervous."

"You know what you have to do for the fear, right? Avoiding it doesn't fight it and putting it off isn't confronting it."

"I know…"

But "I know" wasn't commitment, it wasn't action. And this was the one time she knew that knowledge was less powerful than action. Knowledge wasn't going to fix this. Action was.

"Look…as your friend, and Flynn's, they are going to love him. He's a good man. He may have a checkered past but that was before he met you and now it's easy to see how happy you make each other. Your parents will see that too, and if they love you, that is all that will matter. And they'll adore Ayana. Everyone does."

Rapunzel nodded, and as they rounded the corner to the library's front door she could see the gears in her mind turning when-

"Belle!"

Snow was waiting for them at the front door, standing there with her arms crossed over her chest in the cold, her breath coming out in white clouded puffs, her cheeks pink. She'd been waiting a while.

"It's lucky I caught you!" she declared nevertheless. "Hi, Rapunzel!"

"Hey Snow," Rapunzel stepped forward to hug her, or rather just set her chin on her shoulder since she was carrying so many bags in her hands. "It's good to see you again."

"David says 'hi'!"

Rapunzel beamed just as she always did when David was mention. He was her hero and probably always would be. "Good! Tell him to stop by and say it himself some time."

"I'll do that." Snow's gaze turned suddenly to her, and she saw the intention of her visit clearly in her eyes. She wanted to talk to her. And Rapunzel knew it.

"Why don't I take these and go inside so you two can talk," she commented, reaching back to grab her shopping bags out of her hand. She gave her that stare again, the same wide-eyed warning to behave that she'd given her the first time Snow had stopped last week, then unlocked the door and left the two women standing out alone in the cold.

There they were yet again, another long moment of silence as they stared at each other, feeling miles apart despite the fact it was only a few feet.

"Where's Gideon?" Snow finally questioned. But the curiosity was gone from her voice. The only thing she heard was relief that there was some kind of conversation to be brought up.

"With Rumple, across the street," she answered politely. "How was the move?"

"Great!" she exclaimed, still grasping for conversation. The move was the first thing she could think of, considering she and Rumple had seen the big moving truck at her apartment just after their last conversation. "We're mostly unpacked and got a furniture delivery yesterday. David and I are falling into a routine…it's like everything was just meant to be."

"Good. That's…that's good, I'm happy for you."

The silence stretched between them again, and they both wrapped their arms around each other as the wind blew. It was silly, standing out here talking about these silly things when they could easily go inside and discuss…what, exactly?

"So…was there a problem? Or was there something you needed from the library? A book or…"

"Oh! No, it's nothing like that I just wanted to know if you thought any more about Thanksgiving dinner? We're trying to get a final head count for Granny."

Thanksgiving. Had she thought about it? Of course. Almost nonstop since Snow had issued her invitation, in fact, but had she come to a conclusion about it yet? No. She had yet to so much as mention it to Rumple and secretly had been hoping that Rapunzel might invite them to her parent's house just as an excuse not to go, but of course, she knew Rapunzel wouldn't for that very reason. She wanted her to take Snow up on her offer.

"Um…I've been a bit busy to be honest. I haven't had the chance to talk to Rumple about it."

"Well…you are his grandparents. I know it would be nice for him to have the whole family there."

"I know, I just…" Words failed her. She knew what the problem was, but she wasn't entirely sure she could tell Snow the problem. Because she was afraid. She was afraid a fight would break out, that Snow and David and all of them were not nearly as trustworthy as they were telling her they were. She was afraid, and she knew it.

But her words came back to her, the same words she'd just told Rapunzel seemed to damn her. She could know about her fear all she wanted, but knowing wasn't confronting it, knowing wasn't fixing it. Only action would fix it. She felt her stomach twist. She could walk away. It was only her and Snow out here, if she turned her down and walked away and came up with some excuse to tell Rapunzel she'd never know that she lied to her. But she'd know. And she would never feel right about it. It was time to follow her own advice. It was only dinner. She would have Rumple and Gideon with her, and no one said that she would be trapped there, unable to leave if she got uncomfortable. It would be fine.

"We'll be there," she declared less than enthusiastically.

"Really?!" Snow questioned her eyes going wide.

"Yeah, I'll…I'll talk to Rumple. We'll be there."

"That's great!" Before she knew it Snow had stepped forward and thrown her arms around her neck. "Emma and the others will be so happy to know you are coming. Thank you!" she whispered in her ear. "I'll be back tomorrow after school with the details!"

Snow was gone just as quickly as she seemed to have appeared, leaving her alone in the cool wind staring after her. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

"What did she want?" Rapunzel asked the second she went back into the library.

"She just invited Rumple and me to Thanksgiving at Granny's again. I said yes."

Rapunzel broke into a wide, proud smile. "That's good, Belle. And it sounds nice. I can't imagine that you two had other plans for that day."

"Other than a quiet dinner at home, no. But while it sounds nice…it could be complicated for a number of reasons."

"Because of you and Snow."

"Partially." Yes, that was certainly one concern, but she could think of two others that were a bit more pressing. "I was actually more concerned about Rumple sitting down to dinner with Zelena and Hook."

"Oh…not one big happy family."

"Those three? Not exactly."

"Well…are you sure they'll be there?"

She nodded. "Hook I'm certain will be since he married their daughter. Zelena…I can't be positive, but I assume so, since Snow brought her up the other day and Regina is the only family she has in town. She's so focused on making this all about Henry I don't see her not inviting Regina, and I don't see Regina leaving her sister and niece out of it all."

"How are you going to tell Rumpelstiltskin?"

"Carefully. Very…very carefully," she breathed nervously. It would be an interesting test. He kept saying he'd changed, was it possible for a man to change that much? Was his attachment to Henry strong enough? "We are Henry's Grandparents, and that's what they're trying to make it about. I'll tell him it would be odd if we didn't go...easy enough."

Rapunzel stared at her for a while, over the top of the circulation desk as she fiddled with her papers before finally setting them aside. Her smile was odd, knowing and curious and worried all at once.

"Are things going well there?" she asked. "Between you and Rumpelstiltskin?"

She raised her eyebrows at the sudden inquisition. "Are you avoiding your own problems by taking an interest in mine?"

"Maybe…are you saying you are having problems again?" she shot back with a smart smirk.

The banter was unnecessary. They both knew in the end that she would tell her, because she had no one else to tell. But for the first time in a long time, what she had to report was hardly dramatic.

"We're not having problems, actually," she responded finally hanging her coat up. "Things have been wonderful. He's the same man I've always known, and yet with Gideon here…things are different somehow."

"In a good way?"

"In a way better than good. It's like for the first time he's not just trying to be the man I've always known him to be but he's determined to be that man, he wants to be that man."

"Why do you say that so sadly? It's good, isn't it?"

Had she said it sadly? Did she really sound sad? She didn't feel sad, she felt…worried. Fearful.

"I just want it to last," she admitted with a sigh. "In my experience, this goes on for a while and then things go back to the way they were again."

"But you said that things are different this time, for the first time. He's determined, right? Do you really think it'll happen now?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. It was different than it had been in the past and part of that was terrifying all on its own. If it was different, then she really didn't know how it would all end, or if it even would. She was in the dark. "Things are different, more than they've ever been, I just hope it's enough."

Rapunzel smiled as she fell back into her chair. "Do you love him?" she questioned.

Finally, she felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a smirk. She'd asked her a lot of questions she hadn't been sure about, but this one she knew the answer to.

"I do," she answered. "I don't think I ever really stopped. Before Rumple, I never knew you could love and hate someone, but you can…and I have."

Rapunzel laughed. "You really were your parents' perfect child growing up, weren't you?"

"Most of the time. Until I met Rumple, actually."

Rapunzel collapsed into the chair next to her with a heavy sigh. "He's made you stronger. Love really is strength."

"And weakness…" she admitted.

"And happiness."

"And a weapon."

"And a battlefield."

She nodded. Love was all those things, not just one. All of it. And one more thing.

"And the best thing that ever happened to me."

Beside her Rapunzel let out another sigh and grinned ear to ear.

"Me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose I included this chapter for a lot of little reasons, but really for one big one that kind of connects them all. The past isn't gone. The fiction was meant to bring people together, but it was never meant to wipe the slate clean and make it so everyone is one great big ole happy family. They are going to Thanksgiving, but things aren't exactly perfect between Belle and Snow, Belle is still aware of the danger of having Rumple in a room with Hook and Zelena, and the troubles that Belle and Rumple have had in their past are still ever present. I didn't want anyone to move on to a place that those scars weren't there, I just wanted them to move into a place of "let's try this again", at best! To me, it would be silly not to have Belle at least a little worried that the past would repeat again. After all, every single storyline for them has gone in that circle of things are really good for a while, and then something bad happens (I know this because we, Rumbellers, complained about it all the time). Things are good right now; it would be natural for them to look over their shoulder for the bad stuff. This story is from Belle's POV, but I think one day (a loooong while from now) we'll get to Rumple's POV and find that it would be silly for him not to worry about the same things. Those kind of scars never really go away, but they do fade with time and after only five weeks, that fading isn't enough for it to be irrelevant. It's enough to allow progress, but not enough to allow ignorance. This chapter is really about going on in life even while the fear is still present.
> 
> Thank you to Goldspinner and Ingers for leaving me such lovely comments. There are only three more chapters left, and they're all winners in my opinion, but the next two are big steps for Rumbelle, so I feel certain you will be happy reading it. Obviously, the trickiest was the last chapter, I just hope I did it justice! Peace and Happy Reading!


	12. Going Slow

"I saw Snow today," she called from the bathroom.

It was the night before Thanksgiving. Gideon was asleep in his nursery, she and Rumple were in their pajamas, and he was pulling the pillows off the bed so that they could go to sleep while she finished up in the bathroom. Snow had stopped into the library once more today with final details about the dinner tomorrow, at which point it dawned on her that the time had finally arrived to tell Rumple about the dinner that she'd committed them to. She felt her heart beat as she finally dared to breach the topic. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable idea for her either, but she was ready and willing to manage it for Henry's sake, for the idea that family wasn't perfect, but it was still family no matter the tensions that lay in the relationships. She could only hope that Rumple felt the same

"She um…she's planning something," she muttered leaning against the door jam so she could watch him.

He glanced up at her as he pulled the covers to their bed back. "Surely not world domination. That's a bit ambitious for that particular Queen."

She swallowed hard and shook her head. "Actually, it's a dinner. A family Thanksgiving dinner, at Granny's tomorrow night…she was hoping that we would join them since we are Henry's Grandparents…"

She waited for the glare, the refusal, a sigh, a look of distaste, anything that expressed the disinterest for which she was prepared. Family dinners were not his forte, and she knew that with Zelena and Killian attending it would be difficult to convince him to-

"Of course," he breathed after a small pause.

She was surprised. Not by his words although they were shocking. It was his face. It was lit up in something like surprise and admiration, and she swore that the look on his face was only ever one he had before he cried. Over a family dinner?

"Really?" she breathed utterly bewildered. She didn't think it would be that easy to get him to go along with this.

"Yes," he whispered looking at her like she had just said something amazing.

"But…Zelena and Killian…they'll both be there, and...you don't have to, we don't have to if you don't want to-"

"Do you want to go?" he questioned.

"Well…yes, I think it's important we be there for Henry but-"

"Then we'll go."

She couldn't help but stare at him. Just like that? It was really going to be that simple? It was...the strangest thing she'd ever heard.

"But Zelena and Killian…you don't mind?"

"Well of course I do, but that doesn't change the fact…we'll go."

She was breathless as he reached his conclusion and watched him get into bed without another word, as if they'd just discussed something as simple as Gideon's feeding schedule. It left her utterly baffled. She knew she shouldn't argue. She knew that she should just shut off the lights, crawl into bed, put her head on his shoulder and go to sleep knowing she'd won this battle, however unexpected the victory was…but they only lay there in the dark for a few seconds before her thoughts got the better of her.

It wasn't as simple as he was pretending it was. "That doesn't change the fact…" He'd been leading up to something. Zelena and Killian were there but what did that "not change"? It was going to drive her crazy all night wondering if she didn't ask. She'd never sleep. He'd never sleep. They'd both be cranky tomorrow and a cranky Rumpelstiltskin in the same room as Zelena and Hook...it was really for the good of all involved that she know what was going through his mind, she reasoned.

"Rumple," she muttered propping herself up on her elbow so she could look down at him in the moonlight. "What fact doesn't change?" she questioned staring down at him.

"What?"

"When I told you Zelena and Hook would be there, you started to say something. 'That doesn't change the fact'…what fact doesn't it change?"

"Nothing," he muttered in an attempt to dismiss it. "We'll go to the dinner, the rest is irrelevant." No, it wasn't irrelevant, and it wasn't nothing. She could see that, and she wasn't about to go back to those times when he excused things as unimportant. He needed to tell her.

"No, I want to know," she demanded. "You hate Killian and Zelena, and Snow even mentioned sitting them on the opposite side of the table when I asked her about it today. What would make you so willing to go after years of trying to separate yourself from them?"

"You want to go. Isn't that enough?"

"No," she shrieked. It was true and certainly would have been enough normally, but it wasn't the truth. There was something else, something he wasn't telling her that she needed to know desperately, if only because he hadn't been secretive for the last five weeks and now it suddenly made her nervous that he was doing it again.

"You said it was alright before I told you I wanted to go…what made you want to go?"

It was dark, but she could see the softness in his face as he sighed, rolling his eyes to look out the window in consideration before he finally reached up to push the hair back behind her shoulder and cup her cheek. She sighed into his touch, distracted by just how gentle it was, how she could feel a million different things just with his hand on her cheek. Sometimes it didn't feel like only two months ago they'd been each other's greatest enemies.

"It was you," he finally whispered.

"Me?!"

"You said 'our grandson'…it was the first time you referred to both of us as Henry's grandparents. Not just me. Both of us."

She felt as though her heart had stopped. Had she called Henry her grandson? Yes…yes she had. She'd said that they were Henry's grandparents, which was a concept she hadn't even been comfortable to declare when things were great and they'd just been married, but now…

That was all he needed? That was what made him happy enough to go to a family dinner with Zelena and Killian? Her acceptance of the pair of them as a couple; a unit? He wanted to go because she had called Henry her Grandson? It was that simple. That easy...

She had no words for what she was feeling at that moment. Something as simple as declaring Henry their grandson was ordinarily something that would warm her heart, not his. But the fact that it had touched him, moved him to commit himself to such an act as family dinner…whatever it was she was feeling, it was overwhelming.

The air in the room grew thicker as the space around them shrank and disappeared. Distance seemed impossible. She hadn't thought about it, or planned it, or even determined if it was a good idea at this point in their relationship, but nevertheless, she found herself leaning down and kissing him. It started as something small and delicate at first, a simple kiss of gratitude to dispel some of the energy she felt moving through her body, but when she opened her eyes and pulled away, the last sensible part of her brain that was telling her to bid him good-night and lie back down to sleep began to fade away. She felt her heart sink at the disconnection and so she kissed him again until they both breathed in desperately and their kiss joined their tongues together. She felt herself move so that her body settled perfectly over top of his own comfortably without breaking the contact they held on one another. His hands stayed at her waist for a few moments, nothing but a light touch to help her keep her balance when she moved. But then with another deep breath, she felt them move once more; one to the place on her thigh where her nightgown was riding up and another tangled into her hair grabbing fistfuls of it that was certainly not gentle. That was fine. She didn't need it to be gentle.

The house was quiet. Downstairs a clock was ticking, in the next room their son was sleeping, and the only sound she was aware of was the squeak of the mattress as she melted into him and he absorbed her body, pulling her closer. It was like they were picking up right where they had left off nights ago before Gideon had interrupted them, in a place she was surprised they'd managed not to go to for nearly five weeks, which was easily the longest they'd ever been together without being more involved than a kiss. They'd shown remarkable restraint, but suddenly she couldn't remember why.

All at once, both of them paused, as if the thoughts she'd just had somehow had been projected into his mind.

"I thought we were going slow," he whispered massaging the back of her neck with the fingers that were tangled in her hair.

It was difficult to speak, their chests were both rising and falling as they fought to catch their breath. But she wasn't about to let his words stop her. She knew what she was doing, where this would inevitably lead and how it had ended the last time that they'd given themselves over completely. But she had no thoughts against it as she kissed him again. Five weeks was slow enough.

"Then let's go slow," she whispered against his mouth, before snaking her arms around his neck and kissing him so that their tongues tangled together once more. It was odd, not having his long hair to run her fingers through or push away from his face. But he tasted the same as he always had. He moved the same as he always had. And when she was in his arms, she found that she moved just as she always had as well. It was a secret language exclusive to the both of them, unteachable to anyone else in the world.

Kisses were exchanged. Bodies rolled. Clothes fell to the floor in a forgotten heap. And soon it was more than Rumpelstiltskin that needed the reminder they were doing things slowly and quietly. If they didn't practice both, they might wake their son, and to stop beyond the point of no return would suit no one.

They had wanted slow, and slow was what they got. It took them both at least three minutes to recover from their tryst, the first in a long while. In the end, they both landed on her side of the bed, though she'd forgotten how that had happened. But even once the fireworks in front of her eyes dissolved into the blackness of the room, even when she could hear the wind outside instead of their labored breath, he didn't leave the embrace of her arms. They unwound their limbs enough so that they could untangle their trembling legs and support their own weight, and when he finally pried his head out of her neck she used her thumbs to wipe away the sweat that had collected at his temples. That was probably the most her body had worked since she'd been in labor.

Labor…she felt a twinge of fear and then panic, wondering…

"I had…I had a baby…" she gasped, still trying to catch her breath. Her mouth felt dry. "The fairies healed me but I might…I might be-"

He was quick to lean down and catch her words in tender kisses, letting his hand roam over her neck and chest freely once more as he settled against her.

"You are just as perfect as you always have been. And I have a sudden and new appreciation for fairy magic."

She let out a soft laugh as she kissed him again, knowing that was about as likely as…well…him actually wanting to spend an evening with Killian and Zelena all because she'd used a plural pronoun. Almost unlikely.

Bathed in his glow and the moonlight she moved her hand over his cheek to pull his forehead down to her own. Things felt normal again. They felt normal again, not a hint of the awkwardness they'd shared in these last few weeks remained. She had so many words, so many thoughts, but how to say them all?

"I want you to know I love you," she breathed. "Even when I didn't want to, I always loved you. Sometimes I think it's what made hating you so easy."

He took a breath and kissed her again. "I'm not sure I should be insulted or flattered," he muttered against her mouth.

"Both," she smirked before kissing him back. "But I think flattery is far more appropriate at a time like this…" He nodded. Their hands were everywhere, moving over one another, never stopping, as if it might help them draw even a millimeter closer than they already were. It felt good to be that way again. It felt good to touch without questioning the action and she didn't think they could stop even if they'd wanted to, not at a time like this. She knew they had no choice. Kisses had to be exchanged even in the midst of confession, there was too much to make up for not to.

"I've never stopped loving you, Belle. Not once," he muttered as he kissed her neck and the skin at her collarbone more.

"I know," she whispered. And that was what made it so easy for him to justify all his own actions…and probably hate her too, just as she had him.

It was both easy and difficult to believe they'd ever hated each other with such a passion now, as she pulled him closer and let him kiss her body. So, instead of reliving it, she chose to put it behind her. She tightened her grasp on him and guided his mouth back to her own, which he kissed eagerly. Hate may have been just as easy as loving. But loving and all that went with it was certainly better than being at each other's throats. When she released his mouth, he let out a loud heavy sigh as he let his head fall back onto her chest to kiss the skin between her breasts-

And down the hall, in the next room, Gideon let out a small cry which began to grow quickly.

Though Gideon's tears always had a heavy effect on her soul, she couldn't resist the urge to laugh this time around.

"And you were worried I'd wake him," she muttered.

He groaned as he picked his head up and looked back to their closed door.

"He really does have the worst timing."

"He does," she giggled.

He nodded before glancing back at her and moving a thumb over her cheek. "No more warm afterglow," he noted without an ounce of sadness in his voice.

"For now," she conceded with a smile. With a baby in the house, it may be this way for a very long time, but when she considered the alternative...

"But you know...I wouldn't have it any other way."

He nodded in agreement before kissing her one last time and moving away from her. "I'll get him," he muttered. They adjusted as he moved the blankets aside and sat on the side of the bed, looking for where they'd discarded his pants. When he finally found them and was about to leave she reached out and held his hand tight before he left.

"I'll wait for you," she whispered.

He smiled, then brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, before leaning down to press another to her mouth. He tucked her back into the bed, gently pulling the covers up and over her once more then pressed another final kiss to her forehead. When he left the room to check on their son, they were both smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it. All's well that ends well. Except this isn't the end. Not yet at least. Still two chapters left in Moments Grown, but hopefully, where Rumbelle is concerned, this chapter has the feeling that they've come full circle. That the relationship is repaired (or at least well on it's way), intimacy is restored, and their commitment to one another and their family is well rooted. Someone in a previous review mentioned that they were interested to see how I played out the dinner because they couldn't see Rumple going to dinner with Zelena and Hook for anything. I hope this was acceptable. To me, having a family of their own was great, and Belle's relationship with Neal was awesome, but it wasn't one Rumple was part of. In my mind, Belle accepting Henry as a grandson was always going to be a powerful thing, and in my mind, it was powerful enough to make him want to go to dinner with Zelena and Hook. Acceptable? Also, please note, Exile Readers, if you are at this chapter you need to PM me to get Exile Part VI. You'll need it for this chapter and for the next fiction Moments Beyond! And if you are interested in becoming an Exile Reader, or learning more about Moments Exiled, please let me know and we'll talk!
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you, Taisch and Goldspinner1953 for your comments. I'm excited to have you read these last two chapters. The next one is especially important. There is something, one last thing that we haven't seen yet. It's one very important detail that needs to be covered to end this fiction properly. It's something I've been working on since about three fictions ago and I'm super excited for you to read it. Peace and Happy Reading!


	13. The Right Time

Thanksgiving morning was filled with blushes and looks they hadn't given each other since the earliest days of their marriage, despite the sleepless night. She was wearing her nightgown again when she got up, the sound of the wind against the windows as she'd waited for him to return last night had made her feel chilly, even in the comfortable house and she'd put her nightgown back on to combat it. Still, dressed or not, their morning kiss had lingered far longer than it usually did and when she got out of the shower and Rumple transferred their son from his arms into her own their touches were drawn out. And as she cradled her son in her arms and watched her husband vanish into the bathroom, for the first time that she could remember she felt Lacey leap for joy at the fact that she realized she'd enjoyed watching him walk away from her. Married with a child and blushing like a teenager in love as if she couldn't remember ever being in love. Lacey was happy, Rumple seemed ecstatic, Gideon was sleeping, and it was a thrilling feeling to experience so much joy.

She prepared Gideon for a day at the library and when Rumpelstiltskin appeared over her shoulder, checking on the sleeping baby before kissing her neck, she informed her that she and Rapunzel had made plans for the afternoon before dinner and wondered if he wouldn't mind keeping him at the pawn shop for half the day. He did not, of course. He never did. And as he kissed her neck again, she couldn't notice the little extended touch he'd given her hips before he pulled away. She had forgotten, what it could be like between them when things were good. She liked that it had returned.

"You look beautiful, today," he whispered as they drove to town. It was chilly, but she couldn't resist the sundress, even if she had to wear a thick coat over it to keep her warm. It was beautiful, the perfect thing to wear to dinner, the perfect thing to wear for the mood she was in. The sun burning inside of her made it impossible for her not to bask in the warmth she felt. Even if the thought of Rumpelstiltskin having a car seat in the back of his car made her giggle every time she looked back to check on Gideon.

"Ah! There's my favorite little baby godson in the whole wide world!" Rapunzel squealed as she moved into the library that morning. That greeting was beginning to get a little too common with her as she scooped Gideon up in her arms and was all too happy to hold him.

"I'm starting to think you like him more than me. I might start to get jealous."

"Oh, now, just because I count down the hours until I can take him away from you again doesn't mean I like him more," she commented in a high-pitched babish voice without taking her eyes off her son. Rapunzel was beaming with a smile that was as bright as she felt. Gideon had that effect on people.

"Whoa!" At the sudden exclamation she glanced up at Rapunzel, expecting to see Gideon had spit up, or there was a demon under the desk, but instead, she was looking at her. Rapunzel stared at her with wide eyes after she took her coat off. "Something is different about you."

She shook her head as she moved behind the desk to sort out her work for the day. "Nothing different."

"Yes, different…are you…glowing?" she questioned with shock before her mouth stretched into a smile. "You are, aren't you!"

There was a hint of knowing accusation in her voice, and she felt herself blush, the heat working its way to the surface of her cheeks. Instinct told her to deny it, but no matter what she did she couldn't push the smile that automatically came to her face away, and it seemed silly to deny it at a certain point.

She raised her eyebrows with pride and glanced over at her. "So what if I am…"

Rapunzel opened her mouth to say something, but Gideon saved her and chose that minute to screw up his face in the way that suggested any minute now he was going to cry because he hadn't eaten. She was all too happy to let Rapunzel hold him while she went up to the apartment to fix his bottle and try to wipe away her blush.

"You left before I could tell you the good news," Rapunzel smiled when she came back downstairs, and she handed her Gideon's bottle.

"What good news?" she questioned sitting down at the desk. They'd already decided that they were only going to keep the library open until they went to lunch and frankly, with the holiday she settled into her chair expecting not to move for the rest of the morning. She could already tell it was going to be a slow day with no visitors.

"Last night, I called my parents and I told them! About Flynn and Ayana, everything…well, almost everything, I left out some of the non-parent worthy details. But I told them."

If her smile could have grown any more then it would have. She knew what it was for Rapunzel to make that call, how nervous and fearful it must have been for her. But she'd done it. She'd confronted her fear and lived to tell the tale. And even without Rapunzel's acknowledgment of the outcome, judging by the flippancy of her words, the way she presented them to her, she could tell that it had been good. It gave her the hope that tonight would go just as well as that phone call had.

The rest of the day passed as normally as it possibly could. She and Rapunzel worked throughout the morning, trading Gideon off between the two of them, talking nonstop about Thanksgiving and family dinners. At some point she finally divulged the phone conversation almost word for word. Her parents had taken the news of Flynn well and were excited to meet him and his little sister. They were not particularly happy that she'd waited so long to tell them, but they had accepted it far easier than Rapunzel had expected, and the relief in her eyes was palpable, even if her nerves were a little high. Her mother had asked if she wouldn't mind bringing something to for dinner and though Rapunzel could cook, she wasn't the best at it. So they altered their afternoon plans. After writing a line from her stack of poetry on a chalkboard that she declared "perfect for Thanksgiving and perfect for you", Rapunzel put it outside with the lines "closed until Friday" underneath it. The pair of them dropped Gideon off with Rumple, and they went back to Flynn's house to prepare what they could. Both Flynn and Ayana were home for the holiday, preparing for their introduction tonight, but took the time to come down and see her. Flynn kissed her on the cheek and gave her a big hug saying "long time no see" and making her feel guilty for not visiting sooner after all he had done for her. Ayana, on the other hand, was quick to ask when she could babysit. She needed cash, but Flynn was equally quick to add that she wouldn't be watching Gideon until he was at least six months old.

Together they fixed a small salad for lunch, as no one wanted to spoil their appetite for their dinners ahead, and afterward, she examined the contents of their refrigerator and pantry before determining that she had everything on hand to make apple pie before going over to her parent's house.

"Are you sure?" she questioned wringing her hands.

"Yes! You have ten apples in here. I don't know anyone who does that."

"Me! I love apples! Best after school snack ever! Especially when caramel is involved!" Ayana chimed in.

"Well, they're one of the best desserts when cinnamon is involved."

"And you are sure we'll have time?"

"The perfect amount, it'll still be warm when you take it over."

"And everyone knows warm apple pie is the best kind," Flynn muttered kissing Rapunzel on the cheek. She worked her magic, letting Rapunzel and her family watch as she prepared pie just as she had once upon a time at Rumple's castle but this time with all the wonderful convinces of modern cooking. Together they laughed, they talked about what life had been for them in the cabin and with Rumpelstiltskin, filling them in on everything they'd been doing since they'd been separated almost two months ago. It was a visit that she hadn't known she needed until that moment. When she left their house that day, she felt as though they'd had their own private holiday feast, one unencumbered by family visits or formal dinners. It was simply fun to be with them, and she promised that sometime soon she would bring Gideon over to visit them. Rapunzel was his godmother, and as far as she was concerned, that made them his family as well.

Too soon the time came to tell them all good-bye, and she and Rapunzel stood out on the front porch alone. They both wished each other luck, but she had a feeling that both knew it was silly as they wouldn't need it, even if they didn't believe it themselves. Rapunzel was nervous, that much was clear, and had become clearer and clearer throughout the day as she continuously pulled her poetry quotations out, which made her remember...

"That quote, the one you wrote on the chalkboard...why do you think it's perfect for me?"

Rapunzel only smiled. "Think about it tonight, when you're at dinner. Something will come to you." Then, both a little scared they reached forward to hug one another before Rapunzel went back into the house. She pushed the thought of the poem from her mind, got back into the car, gathered her own courage, and drove quickly back to the shop.

Just stepping inside that place, where Rumple was taking notes on something at the front counter and all was warm, made her smile. Rapunzel would get through tonight. She'd get through it because she had Flynn and her parents, people who loved her. And she would get through tonight for the same reasons. Because at the end of this dinner she would get in the car, drive home, and put her son to bed before settling down to sleep with her husband. No matter how this turned out, tonight they would all go home to people who loved them, and that was all that mattered.

She smiled at the thought as she entered and locked eyes with him. The shop was quiet. Quiet was good. Quiet meant that Gideon was sleeping somewhere, and the calm demeanor on Rumple's face meant that all was truly well.

"How was your afternoon?" he questioned as she made her way over to him.

"Wonderful," she answered before reaching up to kiss him. "How was Gideon?"

"Hardly a peep out of him since he arrived."

And yet, she still tore her gaze away from her husband to locate her son, happily asleep in the back bassinet, his mouth making that involuntary sucking motion that meant he was well and truly asleep.

"Hello my Gideon," she whispered as she placed her hand over his soft belly. He didn't even twitch.

"We were busy most of the time polishing off some jewelry while you were away," Rumple commented from behind her.

She let out a soft laugh. "Really? I didn't know that could be such tedious work."

"Not usually, but this particular piece was special. It's this…"

When she turned around to look, she expected to find something silly like a candleholder or perhaps a large necklace, but what she actually saw was tiny. He held it perfectly between his thumb and forefinger before her. She recognized it instantly, and her mouth dropped open in shock when she realized…

"My wedding ring…" she breathed. Her fingers went automatically to the place it had once encircled on her left hand and suddenly she was aware of just how naked that ring finger had felt. Odd how she could go for so long without it but the minute she found it there was a sensation like she knew where it belonged. She took a step closer to look it over, examine it for any flaws but it looked just as perfect as the last time she'd seen it…she'd all but forgotten about that day after everything that had happened since then. It seemed like another life.

"I gave it to you months ago…the morning after we conceived Gideon!"

"And you told me to hold onto it and give it back to you when the time was right," he reminded her as he moved it around so the facets sparkled in the dull light. "I've carried it with me every day since then, in the Underworld, the dream realm, Storybrooke, even during the curse it was in my breast pocket, the work of my mother trying to manipulate emotions, but this morning...I wondered if now seemed the right time to return it?"

Her heart hadn't beat this fast since the day he'd proposed to her. She was sure that she hadn't felt this many emotions since that moment as well! It was like it was happening all over again. A second chance, not just for their son, or their family. It was a second chance for them as well, a truly fresh start, husband and wife, lovers, soul mates, true loves. They'd burned each other so viciously last time. But something was different now; she'd been saying that from the moment they got Gideon back. This start was new and this promise…in the back of his dusty old shop, it seemed more right than the first time he'd placed that ring on her finger.

The shock of it all wore off as tears came to her eyes and she held her hand out for him and nodded, a silent answer. He took her hand and carefully placed it back over the spot it had once resided. Then, unable to contain herself much longer she stepped forward and put her arms around his neck, burying her face in the spot on his chest that her head had always fit perfectly. Her happy teardrops fell onto his jacket, and he held her to him so tight she thought her ribs might crack.

"I love you, Rumple."

"And I love you."

When they pulled away moments later, they had managed to get a hold of themselves for the most part, but still beamed like lovesick fools and kissed each other all the same.

"I fed Gideon just before you arrived, he should slumber for another few hours, and since we have a few minutes to spare before we head down the road, I wondered…" he moved away from her, over to the record player he had set up in the corner. He turned it on, and she watched the record begin to spin as he slipped the needle into place and a familiar tune that she hadn't heard since her wedding began to play. Naturally, both their gazes fell on Gideon, as they both expected him to wake up and begin to cry, but he slumbered on and after a few seconds of reassurance that he would continue to sleep they looked back at each other with happy smiles. Rumple extended his hand to her.

"May I have this dance, Mrs. Gold, my wife?"

She beamed, her smile brighter than the lights in the room as she reached out and took his hand, falling easily into his embrace as familiar steps came back to her and they waltzed around the shop, their sleeping son the only witness to their act of happiness. And when the time was right, just as it had been with her ring she let him draw her even closer, then leaned forward, and kissed him once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah...I love it, when a good plan comes together. You didn't think I'd forgotten about that ring now, did you? Of course not. Quite the opposite. Think back, way back. Like all the way back to the third chapter of MD&U. I told you that I had a plan for that ring's reappearance and that I was hoping A&E wouldn't suddenly remember and do something about it because I would have been utterly disappointed if I hadn't written it myself. Well, lucky for me, my predictions came true, and I got to fulfill the plans that I had all those years ago and write this chapter! I hope you love it as much as I do. It feels right to me. What about ya'll? How did I do? Satisfying? Underwhelming? Your thoughts?
> 
> Thank you, Taisch and Goldspinner for the comments on the last chapter. And speaking of last chapters, I can't believe we're on to the last! Not going to lie to you, I wanted this last chapter to be perfect. There isn't a lot of dialogue, there is more reflection, but I think it has a little something for everyone. I hope you'll find it just as acceptable as I'm hoping you find this chapter. On to the last, Rumbellers, Peace and Happy Reading!


	14. Story's End

Though they both could have very happily stayed in the back of that shop dancing until their feet bled, they were aware that their time alone that night was limited. It was enough for one dance and one dance only. When the music stopped, their bodies gave up swaying, and she laid her head against his shoulder to hide the tears she felt coming on. It was all too much. It was too perfect. More perfect than she'd ever imagined, more perfect than she'd ever known perfect to be before. In five weeks he had completely turned her definition of "perfect" on its head, and it was far too overwhelming to consider what would be coming next.

"We'd better head down the street," he suggested, giving her the next steps.

"Yes," she agreed. "We should."

She bundled Gideon up, swaddled him comfortably in his blue blanket and checked to make sure the hat on his head shielded him from the cold, but she left her jacket in the shop. The happiness she felt, the flush from the dance, it made her feel as though she was simply radiating body heat and a coat would only trap it inside and serve to make her red as a fire truck. He looked skeptically at it, but she assured him that the walk in the brisk cold would do her some good and it was only just down the street. Still, after he locked up the shop, he was sure to stay close to her, keeping an arm around her waist as they moved, her own arms shielding Gideon from the cold around him.

"Are you nervous?" he questioned as they crossed the street.

"A little," she answered honestly. "Are you?"

"For the end of this chapter? Not at all. It's not how I thought it would end, but while that is regrettable in some ways, in others, it's remarkable."

She smiled, not needing him to explain what he was talking about. He was right. If everything was as Snow had told her, then something like this very well could be not just the end of the chapter. But the end of the story. Rumple at her side, Gideon in her arms…she was ready too.

Rumple steadied her as she moved up the wooden stairs and he reached forward to open the door for her. They were the last to arrive. Henry was there talking with Hook and Emma. Snow and David held Neal between them. Granny was putting out casserole dishes on the beautifully ornate table, and at the far end, Regina was talking to Zelena as she held Robin in her arms. The entire group smiled in a friendly way when they arrived. Snow was quick to come over to her and stopped short of hugging her when she saw Gideon. She thanked them for coming, but it was unnecessary. The feeling, the light and joy in the room, was the same happiness she'd been carrying around inside of her all day. It cooled all her nerves and made her wonder why she'd ever been afraid, to begin with. Really, she should have been thanking Snow for inviting her.

"Now they're here, we can eat!" Granny declared. There was no argument. Most found the seat that was closest to them and sat down right there. Rumple on her left at the head of the table and Regina on her right. Henry sat between both of his moms and Hook between his new wife and his new family with Zelena taking up the head of the other table. A high chair was brought forth for Neal who was capable of holding his head up, and Granny was all too happy to grab him out of David's arms to help set him down.

Though it was diner chairs and tables, she would never have known it. The table was wonderfully decorated, a beautiful cream tablecloth with candles and even a red centerpiece adorned the everyday wear and tear of it, making it a special.

The table was long, and they were seated oddly along one side of it only. At first it seemed it was a strange decision, but as they commenced with dinner, as past ills and scars faded away, and laughter and stories filled the air, it dawned on her just how appropriate it was for the other half to be empty. For empty as it may have seemed, with each passing moment she was aware of just how full the table was. So full that not everyone would have been able to dine there if everyone in their memories who had led them to this place was seated there with them. She was exhilarated to remember how many people had brought her here, how many were responsible for their dinner together as one group, because they certainly hadn't done it alone. And one by one, faces and names, some she hadn't thought of in years, began to flash in her memory.

She thought of Jefferson, who she had not seen or spoken of, or even really thought of beyond the day that he'd freed her from the asylum. She had no idea where he was or his motivations for freeing her, but wherever he was, she hoped he was with his daughter. She hoped that they had a happy life together.

She thought of Mulan and Merida, two warriors from very different times in her life. Bold and amazing women in their own right. Merida was back in the Enchanted Forest, hopefully ruling her Kingdom the way she was meant to with her mother and her brothers at her side. Mulan, like Jefferson she'd neither seen nor heard of since her time in the Enchanted Forest. She liked to picture her still in the Enchanted Forest, if only because she sensed that a spitfire like that would never be able to truly settle down here in Storybrooke. But wherever she was she hoped she was happy; she hoped that she was bringing honor and glory to her family and country just as she'd always wanted to, a woman doing a mans work better than any man she knew!

She took a moment to wonder about Rapunzel, and if her night was going half as well as her own was. She wondered if her parents were enjoying the company of Flynn and Ayana, if they felt as welcome among the former King and Queen as she felt among this family of her own.

Snow was quick to share that Aurora, with her husband Philip and their child, also called Philip, were dining tonight with friends of their own across town; Ashley, the woman who she had met months ago, was with her own prince and their daughter Alexandra. Aurora had just found out she was pregnant again, something Snow proclaimed was far too soon as Neal and baby Philip shared the same birthday. She couldn't imagine being pregnant only six months later.

When Hook turned the conversation to the sea and portals made of the Sorcerers wand, her mind drifted to those who were farthest away from them, those who she longed to see again but knew she probably wouldn't. She imagined Ariel with Eric, lounging on a beach somewhere watching the sunset. The thought of Guinevere and Lancelot, working through the night on rebuilding the Kingdom of Camelot to its former glory in happiness by one another's side. Anna, she knew, was back in Arendelle where she belonged, hopefully watching the snow her sister crafted fall from the sky with Kristoff, who she was certain by now would be her husband.

For Will…she hoped he had found Anastasia, that he had found rest for his soul as she had found rest for her own. Whether that was in Wonderland or here or the Enchanted Forest, she hoped he too was happy. Just as happy as she was.

"Here, I'll take him." As food was passed around she maneuvered her infant back into her husband's arms, letting her own take a much-needed break so she could put the food Granny was passing out on her plate and eat something.

It was perhaps Granny's presence in the diner that made Ruby's absence the most notable of all their friends. She wondered where she was, where her journey had taken her and if she'd ever found the family and purpose that she craved most all. She hoped she had a pack, that she was content with whoever she was surrounded by. She hoped that Ruby sometimes looked up at the stars and missed her grandmother as much as her grandmother clearly missed her. But she also hoped Ruby knew that so long as the old woman was here, she was surrounded by family. She'd never be alone. And no matter the distance, neither would Ruby.

There were many souls with them there in the diner, but most of all her mind continued to be drawn back to the souls who were no longer with them. She felt the weight of loss, the feeling that came from sitting at the family table with the knowledge that some of their number were not just out dining elsewhere or in a different realm. Some of them were gone forever and would never return no matter how she pictured them. Her mother, for one, who had really been responsible for starting her on this journey in raising her to believe all that she held dear. She found herself hoping that her mother's presence wasn't here in this room, but rather wherever her father was tonight, bringing him comfort in his trials and maybe some of the sensibility he had lost after her death.

There was Robin Hood, who she imagined sat across from Regina, gazing at her as she chatted away with her and Henry and Rumple, happy and yet still so clearly mourning his loss as she probably would for the rest of her life. Along with Robin came thoughts of Little Roland and the Merry Men, back in the Enchanted Forest. She wondered how often she thought of them, how often what might have been with that boy touched Regina's mind? She was curious, but she dare not risk ruining the smile on Regina's face by asking now.

And then there was Neal. She imagined him there easiest, probably because she always imagined him. In her mind's eye she saw him across the room, leaning against one of the booths, his arms crossed and one ankle casually over the other. He was watching them. Looking at Rumple holding his brother, looking down at Gideon much the same way she imagined Robin looking at Regina, with love and admiration and happiness, before gazing down the table and looking at pride with Henry.

He was the link. They were Neal's family. No matter the circumstances or people who had helped bring them together, there was no doubt in her mind that the real reason they were all here gathered together, was because one little boy had taken a big brave leap through a portal when he was a teenager. None of this would have been possible without him, and she felt very certain that if anyone deserved to have a place of honor at this table it was Neal.

The faces faded as Gideon began to squirm and cry against his father demanding her attention. The entire table looked over with curiosity as her husband rocked him back into submission and carried on with their conversation, leaving her to watch her husband and her son together. As if sensing her starring, he looked up and met her eyes, his smile broadening into a handsome grin as a moment of silence and clarity passed between them. Rumple had a smile on his face. That was remarkable, miraculous really, when she considered who was sitting at the table across from him. But his gaze remained focused on her. And she found they didn't need to say the words "I love you" for them to be felt, completely obvious, in the space between them.

As the moment passed and she flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned to look down the table, picking up on all the small conversations once more, what came to mind were the lines from the poem that Rapunzel had shown her earlier. They were the lines she'd scoffed at because she couldn't understand their significance or why Rapunzel had thought that they were "perfect for her". "Think about it tonight, when your at dinner, something will come to you," Rapunzel had explained when she'd asked. She was right. Sitting there, right at that moment, the meaning seemed clear as ever, and she smiled as she let them fill her mind once more; a beacon for their future.

"Winter turns to Spring, famine turns to feast, nature points the way, nothing left to say…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, welcome to the end. I really hope that you enjoyed this story! The next story in the Moments series is Moments Beyond. It covers everything from this point on in Rumbelle's life. All the scenes we saw in "Beauty" up until Belle passes away. 
> 
> Of course, if you liked what you read please comment! I love getting those wonderful little gems in my inbox and communicating with the people reading on a personal level. And if you want to read more (and give more kudos), please check out any of the other fictions in the Moments Series. For more information on the Moments Series, upcoming fictions, posting and publishing dates, or a reading order, check out my profile for updates. Peace and Happy Reading!


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